5 Arguments For and Against the Existence of God

Religious topics abound on Listverse and they are frequently the most commented upon. It has been some time since the last one so it seems like the time is ripe for another – and this one is a great one for discussion. Here we present five arguments in favor of the existence of God, and the counterargument for it. Feel free to comment on the veracity (or your opinion of) each but remember to keep calm and argue reasonably. After all, it is our ability to be reasonable (rationality) which separates us from the other animals! Note: These all deal with the Judeo-Christian God.

5

Ontological Argument

First formulated by St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, then taken up by Alvin Plantinga. “God exists, provided that it is logically possible for him to exist.”

This argument is quite brazen in its simplicity, requiring not only a belief in God, but a belief in the necessity of God. If you believe he is necessary, then you must believe he exists.

The Counterargument:

Criticism typically deals with the Ontological Argument committing a “bare assertion fallacy,” which means it asserts qualities inherent solely to an unproven statement, without any support for those qualities. It is also criticized as a circular argument, revolving from a premise to a conclusion which relies on the premise, which relies on the conclusion.

4

Moral Argument

This argument is very old, and states that God must exist for the following reason: 1. An aspect of morality is observed. 2. Belief in God is a better explanation for this morality than any alternative. 3. Belief in God is thus preferable to disbelief in God.

The Counterargument:

This argument is technically valid, provided that the three constituents are accepted, and most critics refuse to accept the first. Morality, they argue, is not universal. Murder was perfectly fine for the soldiers of the First Crusade, who slaughtered every man, woman, and child in Jerusalem in 1099. Thomas Hobbes argued that morality is based on the society around it, and is thus not objective.

3

Argument from Degree

This is one of St. Thomas Aquinas’s “Five Proofs of God,” and still causes debate among the two sides. Here is Aquinas’s statement of it, which I have translated from Latin, for a sense of thoroughness:

The fourth proof originates from the degrees discovered in things. For there is discovered greater and lesser degrees of goodness, truth, nobility, and others. But “more” or “less” are terms spoken concerning various things that approach in diverse manners toward something that is the “greatest,” just as in the case of “hotter” approaching nearer the “greatest” heat. There exists, therefore, something “truest,” and “best,” and “noblest,” which, in consequence, is the “greatest” being. For those things which are the greatest truths are the greatest beings, as is stated in Metaphysics Bk. II. 2. Furthermore, that which is the greatest in its way, is, in another way, the cause of all things belonging to it; thus fire, which is the greatest heat, is the cause of all heat, as is said in the same book (cf. Plato and Aristotle). Therefore, there exists something that is the cause of the existence of all things, and of goodness, and of every perfection whatever. We call this “God.”

The Counterargument:

The most prevalent criticism of this argument considers that we do not have to believe in an object of a greater degree in order to believe in an object of a lesser degree. Richard Dawkins, the most famous, or infamous, Atheist around these days, argues that just because we come across a “smelly” object, does not require that we believe that we believe in a “preeminently peerless stinker,” in his words.

2

Argument from Reason

One of my favorites, with very intricate abstraction. C. S. Lewis (who wrote “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”) came up with this. It begins as an argument from design, and then continues into something new. Very basically, it argues that God must exist, because, in Lewis’s words:

“Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.”

The Counterargument:

It sounds powerful, and the final judgment on it is still out there. But its primary weak point is that, in the strictest sense, it is not a proof of God’s existence because it requires the assumption that human minds can assess the truth or falsehood of a claim, and it requires that human minds can be convinced by argumentation.

But in order to reject the assumption that human minds can assess the truth or falsehood of a claim, a human mind must assume that this claim is true or false, which immediately proves that human minds can assess the truth or falsehood of a claim.

But none of this has anything to do with God’s existence. Thus, the argument is better treated as a disproof of naturalistic materialism. However, given that most Atheists use naturalistic materialism as the foundation of Atheism, is is a very viable argument.

1

Cosmological Argument

Thomas Aquinas’s most famous proof of God refuses to go away. You’ve probably already heard of it in some form. It was around before Aquinas, at least as early as Plato and Aristotle, and in basic terms, it goes like this:

1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. Nothing finite and contingent can cause itself.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.

This is especially impressive in that it was theorized by the Ancient Greeks, at a time when the Universe was not known to have had an origin. Today, we call this “the Big Bang,” and the argument has changed to this form:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

The Counterargument:

Sequentially speaking, these three points are true. But the second point requires the Universe to have had a cause, and we still aren’t sure it did. “The Big Bang” is the most prevalent astrophysical theory today, but it has its detractors, most arguing that because the mathematics that leads back to a big bang do not function at the point immediately prior to the big bang, those mathematics were invalid to begin with.

Better than this, however, is the argument that this proof of God commits the logical fallacy called “infinite regression.” If the Universe had a first cause, what caused that first cause? Criticism declares that it is unfair to argue for every thing’s cause, and then argue for the sole exception of a “First Cause,” which did not have a cause.

As usual, it is only Americans (who this website is obsessed with) who are members of the crazy church varieties, all the hallelujah- intelligent design- glazed over eyes- Republican voting christians.

Meanwhile, the normal European churches are more realistic, and even (gasp) support the idea of creationism!

Everything evolves, whether it’s gaining fur to live in cold climates or losing eyesight in favor of hearing when a species starts living in darkness. Christians believe in evolution, we just don’t believe that humans evolved from microbes, fish, or monkeys.

Religious fundamentalism in the US is a product of the Cold War. By design (yes, ironic) it was meant to be a counterweight to Soviet Russia’s atheism. Now you know why American Christians can be a bit…loopy.

nice sweeping generalization, because no other country in the world has illogical religious practices besides the united states, right? I am an American and i don’t think i know a single person under the age of 65 that goes to church more than twice a year. At least the ‘crazy church varieties’ stick to their guns, unlike your ‘normal’ european churches that just spit out whatever the public wants to hear (evolution at this point in time, though that is subject to change depending on the donations collected at next week’s mass…)

Maybe, but in Europe we maybe have much more crazy-ass new-age pseudo-science cults and people who are so full with alternative medicine that they can hardly walk – even if it clearly contradicts the laws of physics.

no, actually God always says “yes” to your prayers,,although you must work hard for it and God will answer…But most people only prays without work,so there’s nothing to give even you asked or prayed for it….

Or maybe, your prayer might not be exactly according to God’s will. When Jesus used to pray to God, he always asked His Father’s will. If we ask for certain things (I’m not saying we shouldnt ask for our needs) or certain conditions, it must be only for His will, not solely for our enjoyment. And btw, God already knows our needs (Matthew 6:8).

Religion is not the cause of wars, it’s the people that cause them. They may be religious but they’re not doing what God wants them to do. They fight because they’re merely sinners that haven’t been saved yet. God has a purpose for everything He does, you cannot judge His doings based on what you see in front of you. You have to try and look beyond. Even if you’re not religious, but you are a good human being, you’re doing what God wants of you and you will be rewarded!

Religion may not directly be the cause of wars, but it’s a large contributing effort. Look at the crusades. They were political wars, but both sides used religion to justify their actions.

World War II started over territory expansion, but religion played a big role. Hitler was on a mission from God and, as a Lutheran, tried to use Martin Luther’s anti-antisemitism as one basis for his actions.

What a load of rubbish. So if crops grow well we should thank god, however if crops fail … we should also thank god because its his will and he knows whats best for us?
The God moves in mysterious ways argument is just a polite way of being told to shut up and stop asking questions by people who have no answers.

This is insane. Religion is not the cause of wars. Man is. Religion just happens to be the excuse people use to blow others up because they can’t handle other people who are different. People are good because they are good, and people are evil because they are evil. Blame the person for their actions, not their reason for their action.

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It’s religious extremist people like you that cause these ridiculous arguments. I do believe, I have all my life. Although I don’t agree with atheists, god loves everyone, its up to them if they love him back.remember that Michael.

Not that I agree with Michael, but he isn’t trying to convert you. If you ever read the bible then you know of the unforgivable sin, which is saying the holy spirit doesnt exist, or in other words. Atheism.

Lol your avatar pic suits you. :)
Personally I think this depends enormously on the religion, and in the case of Christianity, it depends on the sect (you can’t compare the Franscisian Friars to Westboro Baptists for example), thus Christianity can compell you to do good an bad. However, the most compassionate and morally “perfect” people are religious. It’s a double edged sword, but I think humans need it.

I’m not talking about the go-to-church-everyday pisers, but seriously, look at Buddhist monks and Franscisian Friars (just two examples). These are people who devoted themselves to their religion and wish to gain nothing else from it. Jainists for example, don’t even want to hurt bugs. These people live life on a spiritual level most people (atheist or not) can only dream of. They are role models of what people should strive to be like in many aspects. As you have obviously guessed, I’m not talking exclusively Christianity here.

@Napoleon
Sure, those are examples of enlightened people whose religious leanings probably made them better people, but those examples by themselves are nowhere near enough to uphold the “religieon makes you better” hypothesis.

There are countless examples of people being good where we have no idea what their philosophies are. And I personally, as I am sure many people will agree, know plenty of good people who are not religious in the slightest.

Plus there are examples of the religious having not-so-high morals, I do not think I need to give examples here.

However, I do not think that those examples either are enough to say that religion make you bad either.

And just to be fair, I know plenty of atheist a***holes too.

In other words, you can be good, bad, in the middle, optimistic, depressing or evil etc etc regardless of your metaphysical opinions.

Judging groups or organisations based on the actions of a few individuals is something that I think is invalid and something that really grinds my gears.

How many criminals have you heard of that proclaim the whole police system to be corrupt?

Does religion make you a better person? I think the question is moot.
Has religion helped people to be better? Sure, probably in many cases, but people help themselves in many ways.

if you follow Einstein’s works and his thoughts all the way back to his theory of time, you can come up with a very good argument that science IS the direct cause of the atomic bomb & i think Einstein even warned about that; i believe they even found some private correspondence where he tried to intervene to prevent the bomb’s existence…

No it isn’t. Science enabled us to create an atomic bomb, yes, but science never told us it’s morally good to use it. Religions try to teach you morals with bronze age myths and silly anecdotes. And then you get crusades. Or Muslims who blow themselves up. Or Christians who blow up abortion clinics. Because they have “god” on their side, suddenly murder is a perfectly moral thing to do.

Science is just telling you how the world works, nothing more. Don’t confuse the two.

James you might be a ‘good’ person but how do you know right from wrong(did you thumb suck it out of your mouth?).all Im saying is that we all are born knowing this,one’s conscience, which is embedded in us all.so how does this prove God exists…well we have to have eceived this from somewhere

Your reasoning submits to divine justice. If there is no God then there is no right or wrong but only speculative conjecture with no lasting or meaningful consequences. It would be impossible to do right or wrong because it only exists in your head. Even if your actions lead to death why care? Life is not intentional and any meaning you ascribe to it exists only in your mind. You are going die at some point regardless of your behavior and there is no punishment or reward after the fact. Ridiculous are your ideas of right, wrong, justice, injustice or any type of regulations imposed for the good of self or society. They are as laughable as any religious belief. Literally anything goes. “Do what thou wilt.”

Facepalm. The point of the article is that just because someone’s right about something doesn’t mean they’re right about everything, and the opposite. The entire idea of science not making you intelligent is contrary to the definition of intelligence.

Well, this list might start some poop-tossing back and forth, or maybe people are tired off debating religion? Haha..
Anyway, I don’t think any of the pro-god arguments are strong enough to prove a god, and especially not being able to limit the god they argue for down to the christian god.

This is a very interesting list. Even though the information comes from Christianity concept of God and skeptic response to Christian claims. As a believer in my own concept of God I find this list a great way to question the existence of God, what Gods are out there and if there are Gods what would they want humans like us? Thanks for sharing.

“Criticism declares that it is unfair to argue for every thing’s cause, and then argue for the sole exception of a “First Cause,” which did not have a cause.”

I think the cosmological argument for the existence of God precisely hinges on this very problem. If the First Cause did not have a cause, then it is above the laws of nature, which is what makes it God. By definition, the First Cause is unlike the other causes in that it did not have a cause and from it all other causes were caused (bear with me), and that’s what makes God unique, not merely “a cause.” Or at least that’s my understanding of what the proponents of the cosmological arguments say.

Don’t take it from me, though. I’m an atheist who puts very little thought into the existence of God, so I’m not exactly proficient enough to attempt to prove or disprove or even explain any of these arguments. But I had read about the cosmological argument before and that is what I came to understand of it.

Also, I think the list, interesting as it is, is mistitled. This is not a list of arguments for and against the existence of God—it is a list of arguments for the existence of God and their respective counterarguments, which is quite different.

An example of an argument against the existence of God is the argument from nonbelief. I would suggest a followup to this list—5 arguments against the existence of God and their respective counterarguments. They are equally intriguing.

No arguments against a god hold up against theology, because the entire nature god makes him ‘impervious’ to logic. You can argue against the Christian or Islamic God, or the the god of any other religion, but not against the existence of a supreme being in itself.
The only argument against assuming such a god exists, is that there’s no evidence for his existence, which isn’t even as much an argument against as it’s not an argument in favor of.

It’s impossible to disprove anything, if you accept that that thing is supernatural. However, the people that believe in supernatural beings are advancing a claim, and so must prove there assertion. If there is no proof of somethings existence, we logically treat that thing as though it doesn’t exist (ie. Russell’s Teapot).

I think the cosmological argument for the existence of God precisely hinges on this very problem. If the First Cause did not have a cause, then it is above the laws of nature, which is what makes it God.

Well it’s not a problem if we just see it and accept it for what it is, which is that it’s a “law of nature” that we don’t yet know the explanation of. In that sense, “God” is just a word, a man-made idea used to fill that gap in our empirical knowledge. One could just as easily say that it is “magic”, but that unembodied explanation is less warm and fuzzy feeling.

Any exclamations of that nature that might be uncontrollably uttered during the course of miscellaneous blessed activities (you know, like playing checkers or what have you) would be made purely in a secular sense…

Lol hooly-dooly! The ish is gonna hit the fan in comments on this one! Wooo-hoooo! Strap yourself in and enjoy the ride. :D

Me? Well, one’s faith is a personal thing, I feel. Never really understood why people feel compelled to “spread the word,” it’s just obnoxious. Especially when following a “Bible” that was written, and re-written, over the years, that didn’t have a proper understanding of ish (science, technology, world ain’t flat herp-a-derp) anyways.

I believe in God. But, like all those men that chose their own crap, my God is mine, on my wavelength, my deal. When I do something shìtty – God is there to forgive me and try make me feel better when I know that I’ve done the wrong thing.

Yep, God in Heaven. I’ll believe in all that. Bit, really, only just because it sounds better than turning into worm food at my end – who wouldn’t want something more? Sure, it’s a fairy-tale.. but why not? Lol if I can threaten those close to me with haunting their raggedy àrses from above Heaven then, yeah, I’ll play on that ish. ;)

Sad thing really, we’re only here for a limited time. I make it hard for myself to believe “just” that because some real weird, totally unexplainable, stuff has happened to me throughout my life. I’m not one to believe in “guardian angels” or any other superstitious malarky, but, well, some stuff is easier, in my head, to put it down to my God.

Lol and, oh my God, don’t I give my God a hard time. If you were in my head you’d understand. I can’t make myself go away, and God can’t escape either. :lol:

Your argument is called ‘Pascal’s Wager’, which decrees a belief in a god purely because, on the off-chance it exists, you’ll have an afterlife. So it is wagered that spending one’s life religiously is better “just because”.

The way I see it is, if god doesn’t want me the way he made me, but will take any immoral person who claimed a deathbed repentance or lived in fear and believed “just in case” then I really wouldn’t want to go to his heaven. Chances are it would be filled with douchebags, pedophiles, and holier-than-thou unbearable bitches.

In that case I’d gladly take an eternity of pain and torment as long as it would be in the company of other good, self-respecting people.

Lol Xyroze, I see it kinda the same. Heaven’s gonna be full of shìt anyways. Like, how far is “forgiveness” gonna stretch? You get the pedos and ish up in that Heaven bìtch, well, ya know, I probably don’t belong anyways.

From the way I interpret the bible,being a follower of God (Christian) requires more than deathbed repentance. Just calling out for forgiveness after a life of sin will NOT get you into Heaven. The Christian walk of faith means accepting Jesus Christ as your savior,then living your life as Christ like as possible. Of course as a human, mistakes will be made…but as long as your heart is in the right place and you truly seek forgiveness after committing sin, then you will be fine. Thats what Jesus died for. You cannot judge others (especially for their beliefs), you must not hate, and give selflessly. There are many Christians who claim a certain faith i.e: baptist,Methodist, Pentecostal, what have you, but there shouldn’t be labels. Only your life as a Christian will truly give you passage. So people who don’t live Christ like or who don’t seek forgiveness (you know who you are) are not likely to get into Heaven. But I do not Judge, the man up stairs will see to that. That’s how I interpret my faith. Don’t be fake, and as for other people on the outside looking in,don’t judge my faith by the feeds of the hipocrits who claim it.

If there really *is* some God higher power then he’s got a sense of humour on the mfkr. He knows the ish he does (to me), the stupid situations he (puts me in) directs. I reckon if he can give it, which he invariably does to test me, well, you know, we’re on a first name basis and he can take me clowning him and his ish. ;)

What if you chose the wrong religion and are going to hell anyway? Then you’ve wasted your time on earth, and you’ll still be tortured for eternity. Seeing that there are like a million gods, chances are you didn’t choose the right one.

You got so emotional that you forgot an r at the end of your “you” and a t at the end of your “but”.
But you’d still have to buy me dinner before id let you touch my cheek. And even then i highly doubt i’d let your australian hands near my but chee. Who knows what diseases you may carry. Besides the obvious ones of course.

Speaking of tongues, and lapping, you’re so bold with written text saying how you’d knock me back. Lol funny, hun.. although you may not realise, I’m well aware, face to face, I’d have you weak at the knees and stuttering awkwardly like you’re 14yrs again. :D

I don’t think of it as worm food. Your atoms will become the atoms of other things – grass, bacteria, birds – over the years; what once made you will become something just as amazing as a human being, maybe even greater, when life has evolved further. Your energy could help a prey animal escape from a predator, warm a lady bird or move the leg of a bee. Much cooler than sitting on a cloud for the rest of eternity : D

I also don’t like when non-believers go out of their way to enforce their beliefs. Taking God references off money or out of the pledge of allegiance, picketing nativity scenes etc. maybe I want all that in there. Who are you to tell me what I can read or say about God. I also hate it when non-believers bring God into anything that isnt even related. Seriously. Read thru the comments of any story on any website and 8 out of 10 times some asshat will say something like “well that’s be morons still believe in God”. Um, how is that related to my story of getting ice cream today ?

“I also don’t like when non-believers go out of their way to enforce their beliefs. Taking God references off money or out of the pledge of allegiance, picketing nativity scenes etc.”

Just like theists inserted it there?

“Who are you to tell me what I can read or say about God.”

Who are YOU to tell me what I can read or say about God.

Read thru the comments of any story on any website and 8 out of 10 times some asshat will say something like “well that’s be morons still believe in God”. Um, how is that related to my story of getting ice cream today ?

8 out of 10 times someone will say “Thank God”, “God bless you”, “this is the fault of heathens” or things like that.

I find that evolution by natural selection perfectly explains what we now call morality. It is true that every human society has determined that murder, and theft, and procreating with a direct sibling, are bad things, and that love and compassion are good things… This isn’t only due to culture, but to our instinctive sense of morality as a species, which is actually derivative of our practical sense, as a social species, which evolved from natural selection.

All apes species are social species. That’s how their societies work. If individuals of the same group went around randomly killing eachother, mating with their brothers/sisters, not protecting their children..etc.. the group wouldn’t survive and thus these “unpractical” genes weren’t passed on in unsurmountable quantities. It’s an interesting topic, and a complicated one. I’ve thought it over and I feel everything about human morality can be explained by natural selection.

As for C. S. Lewis’ argument, which I’ve heard before, I always found it quite silly… Or maybe I just don’t get it.

I must not be getting it either because it reads to me like utter nonsense; if you “can’t trust” your own “thinking” with regard to arguments AGAINST God then why can you trust your thinking in regards to arguments FOR God. Nobody is born believing in God – it’s a learned system of belief and thus requires that you trust your thinking.

Hmm. I think Ive seen this idea that genes determine everything.
“If individuals of the same group (…) the group wouldn’t survive and thus these “unpractical” genes weren’t passed on in unsurmountable quantities. ”
Yes yes. I think I’ve seen this idea too. That some groups are genetically different and clearly inferior and as such destined to dissapear (of course the difference in genes from the superior -lets call them aryan- group and the inferior group is simply determined by some obscure gene never found by science-in this case the “morality gene”).
But where? Where have I seen the same theories? Where have i seen this sickening pseudo science? Dammit im at a blank here.
You say random killings were genetically determined. (if i dont randomly kill now it is because i have them good ol’ “moral” genes) but random killings still happen crime rates are higher in some countries. So it’s obvious that this natural selection that created this moral genes is not finished. Some people out there re still inferior. But who are these people? Who killed random people. Oh yeah. Merah. And genetically he was algerian. So clearly algerians are inferior. Quick. Immigration control. Lets vote for Le Pen. Far right to the rescue. Who cares that she is a liar (calling Merah franco-algerian when he was french born in toulouse. The product of the french society. Does she call Arnautu, her good friend, franco-bulgarian?)
Kids, that’s how, by using blatant, ridiculous, pseudo science, some people justify their false superiority and that’s how extreme right wing ideas are created.

Woooooow, you’re the biggest idiot I ever encountered on Listverse. Ahahahaha. And are you stalking me?

Pseudo science? The theory in which our instinctive sense of morality is derived from natural selection is the generally accepted one amongst evolutionary biologists. It’s actually the only existent theory, unless you believe in God(s). Why do YOU think most emotions are universal? Why don’t you want to mate with your mother? Because of cultural reasons? Of course not. Idiot.

And when I was talking about “groups”, I wasn’t talking about homo sapien ethnic groups like whites and blacks or whatever. I was speaking of gradual selection among our great ape ancestors. Our first homo sapien ancestors who came from Africa had that sense of instinctive morality, after millions of years of natural selection, improved through Australopithecus, homo habilis, ergaster..etc.. Thus we all have that same sense of morality because we all descend from the same homo sapiens ancestors who had developed it after millions of years of natural selection.

I’m an archaeologist specialized in prehistory, and particularly in Neanderthals. Don’t lecture me. You know jack sh*t. You’re just an idiot comparing the theory of evolution to social darwinism. Are you some sort of idiot creationist who blames nazism on the theory of evolution? Damn…

And what the Hell are you talking about Merah for? How more off-topic can you get? You’re an idiot.

PS: Merah obtained the French nationality when he was 18. Before that, he only had the Algerian citizenship, idiot. Hence he is “franco-algerian”, just like I am “franco-american” (and yes, I know Le Pen wants to abolish dual citizenship, and I agree with her on that). But anyway, this is off-topic, and you’re still an idiot and probably always will be.

“I’m an archaeologist specialized in prehistory, and particularly in Neanderthals.”

That clearly makes you an evolutionary biologist, right?

“Thus we all have that same sense of morality”

Well we don’t have the same sense of morality. Morality extends past incest and murder. A few tens of years ago homosexuality was not moral. Some countries nowadays still consider it immoral.

Capital punishment, that is another aspect of morality, equality of genders, polygamy and monogamy, cheating, divorce, lying (which generally is considered to be immoral but might have some evolutionary reasoning)etc. Moral issues that different people view differently.

Morality is a fast moving concept. And while some attitudes can be explained by evolution(and you clearly cherry picked the most glowing aspects) clearly it does not “perfectly explains what we now call morality” since morality isnt just to kill or not kill to copulate with relatives or to not copulated with relatives.

“Why do YOU think most emotions are universal?” what do emotions have to do with morality?

“Merah obtained the French nationality when he was 18. ” You should check the Guigou (1998) legislation on droit du sol concerning algerians and the site of the french gouv : http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/les-francais-a-l… and you’ll see that you are wrong.

I am extremely worried that as a voter you are not aware of these things or of France’s history.

<> Oh that might explain it. Sadly you have taken the worst of 2 worlds.

You should read up on the history of FN though. Maybe read up who the founding fathers were (you americans love founding fathers) check out who the collabos were, and the OAS. Add 2 and 2 together since you seem like a bright lad and see what a wonderful birth the FN had.

“You’re an idiot.” I was not expecting any better from a sympathisant de Marine Le Pen. Hey I’ll be partying on the 22nd and 6th. What will you be doing?

Of course there are historic and cultural variations on right and wrong. That’s not what I was talking about. I was talking about the primitive sense of instinctive morality. A creationist argument can usually be summarized by “God gave us moral sense, that’s why we don’t run around killing and raping random strangers”. I was reacting to that sort of argument, saying simply that natural selection is the reason for our social qualities as a species. You’re extrapolating, as you did in your previous comment with your idiotic references to Nazism and social Darwinism.

And in the perspective of natural selection, emotions have a lot to do with instinctive morality. To give the easiest example, mammals instinctively protect their young, and thus assure the survival of their genes. This evolves into affection and love for siblings, and by extension protection of one’s group in social species. Compassion is derivative of love ; thus we have the moral standard of helping the needy which is universally considered a good thing – because we love. I’m not going to draw you a wider picture. Of course, there is then much variation for specific subjects like views on homosexuality and such – influenced by religion, philosophy and law. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m specifically addressing the most basic universal morals which are derivative of emotions.

As for Merah, again, off topic. I don’t really give a flying sh*it about the guy and never blamed his Algerian citizenship or whatever for any of his actions. You’re the one who brought him up for no intelligent reason whatsoever. Your link doesn’t work, but I know what the Guigou law is – it’s that one born of immigrant parents automatically obtains the French nationality at 18. You’re implying the law is different for Algerians, perhaps you’re right, I don’t know and you’re wholeheartedly dishonest when you say “I am extremely worried that as a voter you are not aware of these things or of France’s history”… You’re just being a sensationalist little b*tch. I’m sure it’s not catastrophic to not know there are exceptions for Algerians when it comes to obtaining the French nationality. Actually, if there were, it would probably encourage me to vote Le Pen even more.

I like your history of the FN argument. The classic “look at what some old or dead guys did 50 years ago” argument. I know a lot about history, notably that most collaborators came from the pacifist left, as demonstrated superbly by “franco-israeli” historian Simon Epstein in his “Un Paradoxe Français – Antiracistes dans la Collaboration, antisémites dans la Résistance”. It’s a great read, you should check it out (I’m not trying to be a smart*ass, it’s genuinely a good read which I recommend). But what about the history of the left? Pro-USSR, pro-Mao.. back in the day. Why don’t you complain about that? Because these traitors eventually rejected their support? Because they changed their minds? Their history is still full of support to genocidal regimes, and vice versa.

As for election day, I have no illusions. I’m neither going to party nor be sad. I’m certain Hollande will win, and if not, it will be Sarkozy. It doesn’t really change anything. Both are one side of the same coin. That you’ll be partying for no good reason is somewhat laughable.

You consider me an extremist, but I have the exact same contempt for you (only I’m much more tolerant than you are to people of different opinions). Pour moi c’est toi l’extrémiste. C’est toi qui participe à la destruction de mon pays, de ma civilisation, de ma culture, par ta mollesse et ta médiocrité. T’es un extrémiste de la médiocrité.

“I find that evolution by natural selection perfectly explains what we now call morality.”…”I was talking about the primitive sense of instinctive morality”

So which one is it? Because even religious morality tackles more issues that murder rape and stealing.

And the mother instinct: well some mothers decide to give their children up for adoption because they think they are unfit. I doubt that would count as immoral.

But yes regarding basic moral issues: murder incest probably evolution had its influence. But that it explains morality, religious or otherwise. Neah.

And you should know that children born on french territory by Algerian parents born in Algeria before 62 when Algeria became independent are given citizenship, regardless of age. It an interesting part of history, a clear connection between this law and de Gaulle’s speech at Algiers on the 4 th of June 1958: “Je vous ai compris!(…) je prends acte au nom de la France et je déclare, qu’à partir d’aujourd’hui, la France considère que, dans toute l’Algérie, il n’y a qu’une seule catégorie d’habitants : il n’y a que des Français à part entière, des Français à part entière, avec les mêmes droits et les mêmes devoirs(…)Pour ces 10 millions de Français, leurs suffrages compteront autant que les suffrages de tous les autres.”

When voting left and right, when voting for someone who wants to remove the droit du sol, you should read up.

“look at what some old or dead guys did 50 years ago” …”mon pays, de ma civilisation, de ma culture” Dude you cannot write off/ignore part of your history and then say heey my freakin history is awesome.

” that most collaborators came from the pacifist left” If the RNP, and PPF declare to be socialists that doesnt mean they are. If you check you, those parties had a strong fascist component to them and drifted off to extreme right.

Let’s not forget that Jean Moulin was a member of the Parti Radical, a leftist party, and Aubrac did invite people to vote for Hollande. It is not a new thing though that extreme right parties were part of the Resistance.

These arguments against god are more like logical arguments against apologetics. An argument counterbalance, if you will. Not that it isn’t a good list, it is. It seems to me all god/no god arguments eventually boil down to an appeal to logic vs an appeal to emotion. Observation vs Faith.

Staunch atheist Fred Hoyle converted to theism and spoke of a super calculating super intellect and no blind forces in the universe worth mentioning after observing the resonance levels of beryllium, oxygen, helium and carbon atoms. His faith sprang from observation. Just sayin’.

I am an Atheist, but one that cares not what others believe. Feel free to fill your heads with whatever you like, be it god, posidon, tooth fairy, or flying pasta servings. I could not care less and I see the good that religion does in the world with people of faith and motivated by faith can do, in terms of charity and selflessness.

However, as a British Army Officer of 20 years, I also see the madness religion causes to the point of absurdity. The idea of Intelligent Design, Heaven, Hell and that god has the telepathic power to read my thoughts and could care less about the 7 billion other souls on this planet, let along all the other creatures, plants and micro-organisms is lunacy of the highest order. It is fraud, and to think that Mitt Romney is a man that belives that Jesus went to the United States and Joseph Smith actually communicated with a Supernatural being, and that the same Mitt Romney want to control the launch codes, it is very worrying.

Enjoy you beliefs, live and let live, Im not telling you what to believe, I just think religion has no place in science, foreign policy, politics, medicine or law.

Every time i see a military man i love telling him this quote:
“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my
contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the
spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be
done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
– Albert Einstein
It amazes me that you see the madness of religion but do not see the madness of the military.
Destroying the individual and individual free thought, creating a bee hive mentality, all through singing in unison(in some religions wearing the same outfit to destroy individuality, and of course the military outfit), long processions, the use of imagery huge cathedrals huge navy ships and planes, not questioning what you are told because there is a higher superior being: god and the generals. And for what? The promiss of some kind of ridiculous reward: The Nation and Paradise.
But some day this will stop. It is my sincere opinion. Just look nowadays. Would France attack Germany? Would Spain attack Poland. The EU has done good.

That’s an excuse spineless people who are afraid to die say. War is often necessary, and you should respect soldiers who fight for their country (provided they’re fighting for their country not corporations).

That’s the thing: wars start cuz one idiot thinks he’s doing his country a good thing.
A lot of atheist comments talk about the relativity of Gods and God. Since there are so many gods there cannot be a god. The same goes for fighting for your country. Sonce everybody is justified in fighting for their country, then that idea is clearly stupid of fighting and dying, hence Einstein’s quote.
But I am probably wrong. Breivik in his rhetoric- that he fought for his country and would happily die for it- makes him a wonderful soldier. A brave one. He uses the same arguments you used. So he fits your description.

Einstein’s quote is as strong and as valid as the many reasons which justify the use of force by a nation or an individual.

Only time will solve this issue, if humanity can survive long enough.

Education and justice as well as other concepts are slowly replacing the need for religion, as the diminishing influence of religions in developed nations is as clear as it’s ascension is in third world.

As long as religions exist we will not be able to eliminate violence.

I do not believe in God and my belief demands nothing from anyone. I don’t demand special dietary exemptions, no special holidays, no obligatory dress codes. I will not systematically exclude or avoid people on account of their religious beliefs (that would require me to religious) I will befriend anyone with a sympathetic disposition.

In fact, I only need to love a woman to marry her, don’t need an atheist woman to love and marry, how many religious people intermarry without one of them converting and how many religions accept apostasy, the answer is in the punishments meted out to them.

In a cosmopolitan society do religions respect others, no because if that were the case there would be no demands for special accommodations in the public sector…

Humanity must solve the religion barrier if we are to evolve as a species.

We can comunicate only because we talk the same language. We have things in common. We speak english (to some extent in my case) we have an internet connection and we both read LV.
In the cases you described religion is more a cultural devide. Just like language is one or customs and habbits or history, origins etc. But of course these can be overcome. I have friends from different religions and atheists. I don’t see religion as a problem. It can be a devide but also something great when you discover another culture. It would be a bit boring if everybody were the same. And atheism can be a devide too. Just check out Stalin’s policy. Religions were persecuted and people sent to jail. How is that not a barrier? How is that not imposing your view on the world on someone else?
I think if someone is a good/open person, then that person is good/open no matter what. You’ll hear comments that say: I have a relative that is very religious and he is a douche.
And others that will say that they have relatives that are religious and are nice and thoughtful, then probability theory tells me that the belief system of a person is independant of that person’s actions. It’s math.
Ideas don’t kill people. People kill people. Just like nobody here saw God, nobody here has never seen an idea take form and stab somebody.

Mum and Dad and Denny saw the passing-out parade at Puckapunyal
It was a long march from cadets.
The sixth battalion was the next to tour, and it was me who drew the card.
We did Canungra, Shoalwater before we left.

And Townsville lined the footpaths as we marched down to the quay
This clipping from the paper shows us young and strong and clean.
And there’s me in my slouch hat with my SLR and greens.
God help me, I was only nineteen.

From Vung Tau, riding Chinooks, to the dust at Nui Dat
I’d been in and out of choppers now for months.
But we made our tents a home, VB and pinups on the lockers
And an Asian orange sunset through the scrub.

And can you tell me, doctor, why I stil can’t get to sleep?
And night-time’s just a jungle dark and a barking M16?
And what’s this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
God help me, I was only ninteen.

A four week operation when each step could mean your last one on two legs
It was a war within yourself.
But you wouldn’t let your mates down til they had you dusted off
So you closed your eyes and thought about something else.

Then someone yelled out “Contact!” and the bloke behind me swore
We hooked in there for hours, then a Godalmighty roar
Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon,
God help me, he was going home in June.

I can still see Frankie, drinking tinnies in the Grand Hotel
On a thirty-six hour rec leave in Vung Tau
And I can still hear Frankie, lying screaming in the jungle
Til the morphine came and killed the bloody row.

And the Anzac legends didn’t mention mud and blood and tears
And the stories that my father told me never seemed quite real.
I caught some pieces in my back that I didn’t even feel
God help me, I was only nineteen.

And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can’t get to sleep?
And why the Channel Seven chopper chills me to my feet?
And what’s this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
God help me, I was only nineteen.

Suppose your little country you live in got attacked by another country bent on domination. If it wasnt for brave men and women who decided to give up some of their lives to take up arms to defend your country(while you sleep soundly in your bed at night)they would steam roll over your land. Maybe kill all your friends and family after they rape you, take control of everything and make it their own country. There are certain types of soldiers out there that deserve our respect and honor and pay a terrible price like you describe in your little poem. So, enough with the holier-than-thou soldier bashing.

your an a**hole for talking down to a member of the military. how do you think your shi**y country was formed. Men and women shed blood to ensure your freedom. while you sit on a computer all day posting garbage, the military is working and sacrficing lives to make sure you can live in peace. remember that the next time your on the computer wan**ng it and writing page long responses about nonsense politics and the idea of morality. you contribute nothing to your community yet you criticize it becasue thats not how you like it. i wont post back to any response because i feel this has been a huge waste of my time. just had to respond because anyone who disrespects the military should go live in darfur or some other war torn country/region and still try to think that having a military to protect you is “madness”. there will always be people with conflicting opinons and ideals and the point of the military is to protect us when radical indivduals, governments, etc. resort to violence.

“I just think religion has no place in science, foreign policy, politics, medicine or law.”

Even though we wouldn’t have the level science, medicine or law we have today without religion? Hows that you ask? For starters A catholic priest invented a theory called The Primordial Atom which secular society laughed at and mockingly called The Big Bang. God save the Queen! Wa-Wahh.

An annoying thing, I reckon, about the religious freaks, is the straight-up blatant mind-numbing hypocrisy.. that they trot along with.. like it’s par for the course. They never once have a moment of self-reflection, they’re just blinkers on for the faith.

I mean like, picture this, an eight year old kid running across the street hit by a car. Banged up fighting for his life. Ambulance comes, he’s scooted to hospital, he’s sent straight to the operating theatre.

Now, here, is where two different scenarios arrive. A) His broken bones are fixed and he’s survived the night. Automatically that’s a gift from God, a miracle, Jesus lives, God bless the Saviour, thank you Jesus.

B) Same kid, same scenario, his internal injuries were too much, try as they might surgeons couldn’t stop the bleeding, kid bled out and died. Doctor’s fault, how we sue you now, you let him die, you bàstard.

Name one instance where scenario A and B has happen to the same kid/parents and where these people behaved differently in once instance as opposed to the other contrary to their beliefs.

Or does reality go something more like this: same type of injuries to a kid, but different kid with different parents which may not hold the exact same understanding of beliefs or the same beliefs if any at all?

#2 Could also be called a version of the anthropic principle.
The universe is finely tuned for us (life in general)

Wheras it is probably the other way around, we are tuned to the place we live in .

We trust out thought to be true because of experience and evidence. We know that some thinking is false, this does not mean that all thinking is false.
Bit of a strawman argument, if I don’t trust my thinking how do I know anything is true (let alone a non-belief: atheism); evidence and experience.

Hmmmm, atheism is a non belief in some things, how can we treat a non-belief the same as a positive belief.
It is easy to prove whether or not there is a dog.

Funny how every picture of god in this list portray him as white old man . He look like Santa Claus without the red suit .I always thought it was funny when i saw pictures of Jesus and he’s depicted as pale white but lived in the middle East .

God- a giant white old man

Yeah right, The church has a racist overtone producing images that they want to control .Notice that they don’t portray God as a giant Old Black Man why not ?They have no proof that he’s white or black .

Then what do we portray him as, a chair? but oh no that would be racist towards tables lol. In my opinion he has no image, he isn’t a physical being, and for all i know Jesus could be black, who knows.

I believe that God and Religion are two separate things: God is God..Religion is man’s way of trying to explain Him. All religions seek to understand God and his relationship with humans and the universe, which is why different religions tend to clash as each comes to believe that their particular religion has the only correct answer and often their belief extends to that of ‘anyone that does not believe what we believe is a heretic and must be destroyed’

To suggest that, because God failed to stop a war, save a child or answer a prayer (etc) is proof that he does not exist is quite naive and perhaps even a little churlish. God is the supreme being, older than the universe with supernatural powers. He does not ‘have to’ do anything – he may do as he chooses. God may not even care whether you believe in him or not.

What is important is that we need respect other people’s right to believe whatever they want to believe and not try to force our beliefs upon those who don’t want to change — and stop bickering over religious doctrine – Such bickering can cause wars. In the words of the late Dave Allen “Goodnight and may your God go with you”

I always liked the question that if God created the universe, who created God?

The thing is, I don’t like arguing against the existence of God, because we can never be certain of the truth. Instead, I argue against religions and their effects on the world around us and whether they are good or bad.

#5. “God exists, provided that it is logically possible for him to exist.” – I would very much like to hear that logic…where is it? Also, it is logically possible for me to be the President Of The Universe For Life…but surprisingly, I’m not. Just because something is logically possible it doesn’t suddenly mean it’s true.

#4. “2. Belief in God is a better explanation for this morality than any alternative.” – No it isn’t. Or we’d all support slavery (at the least, since we’re talking about the Judeo-Christian God).

#3. Dawkins refuted that fairly easily, but let’s take this for example: “Therefore, there exists something that is the cause of the existence of all things, and of goodness, and of every perfection whatever.” – Where did the “and” come from in this sentence? Even if there is something which is the cause of the existence of all things (Big Bang), why would it be the cause of “goodness”? Where does this leap in logic come from?

#2. “It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true?” – Just because something is a by-product, it must be faulty? Why?

#1. “Therefore, the Universe had a cause.” – Yes, the Big Bang. If one can exclude “god” from “whatever begins to exist has a cause” then why not stop one step earlier at universe itself?

I think you, and a few others in the comments, are missing the gravity of the “cannot trust my thinking” point. If we all evolved from random chance over billions of years, how do you know you evolved into someone “with logic”? How do you know you didn’t evolve differently than I did? How do you know you’re not defective? How do you know your thoughts are “thoughts”? How do you know when you feel “right” it’s “right”? How do you know I haven’t evolved a sense of ‘truth and you are still left with the apes? If your thoughts are nothing more than baking soda and vinegar, how do you know anything at all? You can’t control your thoughts – they are chemical.

There most certainly couldn’t be an over-arching “logic”, as it’s not chemical, so does not chemically interact with your brain – therefor, if that happens to be what you believe in (materialistic evolution), you are unable to use logic and unable to trust your thoughts at all.

You obviously CAN trust your thoughts, which suggest something “more”.

It’s a deep topic – though I don’t think it proves God – I think it deserves more thought (ironic?) than most people here are giving it.

I’m not missing the gravity, but I don’t think god (ANY god) solves anything. Our brains evolved to be logical by the definition of this universe. Maybe it would be completely insane in a different universe. Some are in this..

On the other hand, how can we know we’re not in a “Matrix scenario”? We can’t. But you still have to start with *some* axioms, and keep them until they stop working.

“Our brains evolved to be logical by the definition of this universe.”
When? How? Who? When did this happen?
I just took a nap and every thing was a mess and I woke up and now every brain is a logical unit. And the freakin universe has a definition? Woohoo. Sh*t has been going down during my nap.
But i gotta ask, cuz im skeptical: what type of logic? Mathematical? Philosophical?Computer sciene logic like Hoare’s? And if the brain is say mathematically logical how come we don’t teach Godel’s theory in kindergarden. If it’s engrained in our brain like vision and shape recognition and smell and other stuff. And how do you explain feelings if it is so logical. How do you represent fear using V’s and turned L’s and reversed E’s and other logical symbols. And what’s the definition of the universe and who got the Nobel and Fields and Playboy’s prize for it? And who created that definition?
Hey I’m beginning to think you pulled a fast one on me. I’m beginning to think you use fancy mathematical vocabulary without knowing what it means. Axioms are statements that cannot be proved true or false. And as such they cannot suddely stop “working”. You either say they’re true and work on you stuff. Or say they arent and work on other esually valid stuff.
Damn my critical thinking. I had such hopes waking up and reading your comment.

Our brain evolved to survive. If it didn’t work properly and was illogical we’d be long extinct. An ill-equiped brain would think it can fly off a cliff and survive. A logical one would not. I don’t see where’s the problem in that. Maybe we’re just having a bit of a misunderstanding here.

Axiom, seriously? Axiom is not only a mathematical term, here are the first lines on wikipedia: “In traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not and cannot be proven within the system based on them. Axioms define and delimit the realm of analysis. *In other words, an axiom is a logical statement that is assumed to be true*.”

You’ll also notice, I never claimed axioms can be proven. But maybe I’ve picked a wrong term..

That’s right. Flamehorse copied and pasted a ton of material from Wikifrickinpedia. Do I blame him? Yes. Do I also blame JFrater for not doing due diligence in checking even the most basic of sources? Yes.

My other comment is awaiting moderation, so I’ll just put this out there: Flamehorse, who has consistently proven here that s/he is incapable of coming up with a coherent, well-researched list, did this one by plagiarizing a ton of material from Wikipedia.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

I think the best disproof for the last argument is that if everything have a cause, including the big bang or whatever came first, then also god must have a cause. and that leads to the conclusion that god has a creator too. but, whats caused this god’s god…?

I liked this list, but yet to hear a good argument to the “god theory”.

If you rely on science, then you expect logical, testable proof to the big bang – including first causes. If you believe in the Christian God, you accept there are things you cannot understand yet. Easy out? Maybe so, but it still leaves non-supernatural questions about the big bang unanswered.

“Show Up” lol – thats very true :) – although you may also appreciate Human Beings have some of the poorest eyesight, the poorest sense of smell, and among the poorest sense of hearing in all of the animal kingdom. Even a cat can see, smell and hear thousands of times more than we can. As a species we are comparitively deaf and blind – so actually seeing something may be like asking a mole to ‘see’ the empire state building – it’s very likely beyond us.

Your comment made me think Lifeschool:
I think God decided to not show up when he saw the moon landing conspiracy nuts. “If some jerks don’t believe what they see on a freaking telly screen with hundred of people attesting to the validity of it good look believing in me”

But in a more serious tone:
I think of God as an axiom. You either say it’s true and you go on with your life. Or you say it isnt and you go on with your life. And as such it doesn’t need arguments for or against it.

He already did show up, about 2000 years ago… it’s one of the most documented and witnessed events in history. He even performed a bunch of miracles and raised himself from the dead (again, with hundreds of witnesses).

I’d say “I wish somebody had filmed it”, but then people would just be crying “FAKE!” anyway.

Bottom line: Even if a deity did show up (or maybe they already have) and performed god-like miracles, tons of people still wouldn’t believe it.

The New Testament of the Bible claims to be a compilation of eye-witness accounts and letters written by people who knew Jesus personally (including his brother and a bunch of his buddies), among other things.

Personally I believe what the Bible says, but it’s up to each individual whether they believe the Bible is real, fabricated or a combination of both. I think you bring up some good points… but my comment was a response to oouchan’s comment above:

“the number one thing to prove the existence of any god or gods is for them to show up”

Even if a deity were to show up on Earth and “show off” their powers and the events were heavily documented, most people would just cry “fake” anyway.

Sadly I think there’s no way to be 100% sure about God. At this point in time, we can’t prove he does exist or doesn’t exist, although great arguments can be made for both sides.

I’m not saying that I’m a believer one way or the other, but I find it prodigiously ridiculous that we, as humankind, know almost nothing about the universe but people can say with such certainty and conviction that there’s no force at work in the universe that we have no understanding of. Same goes for ghosts/spirits. Seems a bit ignorant when even the brightest minds on Earth know only very little about the cosmos.

Oh God! This list is certainly meant to stir up some controversy. I don’t really care if the Flame copied some things verbatum from wikipedo – as long as his arguments are clearly defined so they can be considered. Wiki info is public domain – so it’s one of the few sourses you can quote without having to go through a load of red tape. It’s basic, yes, but to understand some of these arguments it helps if it IS put in a basic way. Not everybody can understand textbook jargon.

As for comments, well, I believe in God. I don’t care what anybody else thinks because my idea of God is personal and individual to me. My God doesn’t judge – so it doesn’t matter what religion/science/culture/cult you choose to believe in, and certainly not what career path/agency/troop to choose to follow. My God leave all the judgement to me. If I choose to hurt others then I may choose to live in my own torment. If I am still in torment by the end of my life then it’s up to me whether I continue with that or give it up. My God doesn’t get involved in petty moral arguments because morality is a manmade concept. Everybody dies – period – and when they do they return to him. (I say ‘him’ but gender is another manmade concept). My God doesn’t care what is written in books – even ‘Holy’ books – and doesn’t care whether people follow religion; because books, stories, words and religions are all manmade concepts too. My God is as impassive as smoke, as fluid as water, and as omnipresent as sunlight – eveywhere and yet nowhere – everything and yet nothing.

How about this:

I am consciousness. Where did I get my consciousness from? Was it in my brain to begin with?, or was it present in my fetus before my brain even developed in the womb? If it’s the latter, and if God is pure consciousness, then perhaps that consciousness is the same as my consciousness (just as water pours into a jar); which makes me part of God and God is part of me – inseparable – in life and in death? I like to think so – otherwise it’s worm food for us all.

I was raised Lutheran. Much to my parent’s dismay, of all of us kids I didn’t continue to go to church when I grew up. I still believe in God, but the rituals just bug me. You HAVE to memorize this. You have to go here every week and recite things and sing. You HAVE to do these certain things or you will burn in hell. What clinched it for me was when a couple that I know had a child. They were two different religions. She wanted the baby baptized immediately so the baby would be “saved”. The man wanted him baptized later because according to his religion babies don’t know why they are being baptized and should do it when they reach a certain age after they have classes and know why it’s happening.

So may religions have so many rituals and they vary so much. And boy, oh boy…if you have another view, watch out! When I got married my husband and I refused to get married in a church because there were so many things we HAD to do (before and during the ceremony) that it was ridiculous. And of course, we got lectured from so many people because we didn’t follow those rules. Whatever!

We’re teaching our kids about God. If they choose to go to church when they are older, great. If not, so what? If people still believe I never understood why they HAVE to do cetain things or it doesn’t count.

If their`s a god, then why has there been people like Nero, Genghis Khan, Vlad the Impaler, Ivan the Terrible, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe and all the other mad tyrants? And Vlad the Impaler, Ivan the Terrible and Hitler were all religious people. Hitler famously was supported by the Vatican and Catholic Priests were members of the Croatian Ustashi who carried out horrific murders. So their`s no God..

dont u think its merciful an d pleasing that isnstead of hiding hell, He shows it to us on earth so we can see and say ‘yeah, we need to get out of this transmiigration’. ? also, what if it was hitler who was being impaled by khan’s spear in the next life. we dont have ALL the answers as of yet

all these people who dont believe need to f-en man up and deal with the fact that them having a ‘supposedly’ hard life means they didnt pray from the heart ,and their difficulties cannot be blamed solely on Him when the humand oes no t put in an effort

Quite a few people argues that existance of a God cannot be “proven” and on the opposite side there are people who state that “proof” is not necessary or is not even relevant.

I would say that proof of a God is not necessarily required, there are a great deal of significant things that I do not require proof for. I have commented many times on different lists about the slippery nature of proof and the danger of using the word FACT (usually in allcaps) as a weapon.

But for an entity as extraordinary as a God, at least *something* other than verbal testimony is definitely required in my book. And that something has yet to be presented.

I was brought up in the Disciples of Christ Church. My parents told me to always treat people with kindness and love. They didn’t hate any race, religion, sex, etc. Over the years of meeting people all over the world I have made a strange discovery. Most of my friends are a mix of atheists, religious, or not sure. Most of the politicians who seem to be in love with violence and guns are Repulican conservatives who think they’re religious. Sad. They love the fetus but vote to cut funds for the baby when they get here. Many believe the earth is 5,000 years old and refuse to care about logic or science. Sad. Find a war in history not connected with religion. Romney can’t wait to attack Iran and he ran to France during the Vietnam War. Is that being a good Mormon? Cheney talks religion and had 5 deferments. Bush stayed home too. The people who love war and guns seldom go to war. If we attack Iran if Romney wins, think his sons are going? No. If the world had no guns or religions, I believe the world would be much better. Most of us get along with each other. Peace and love. I have faith in all of the kind people I’ve met over the years. I love life and seldom get sad and depressed. (5 minutes per year…maybe) I hate no one. I don’t judge religious people or atheists. I’m a ____________. I’ll never tell.

Profound analysis of the text. I like your take on things, but I think you need to rethink your conclusion, as it’s slightly undercooked. Anyway, thanks for the comment it gave everyone a lot to think about.

That list was funny. I was expecting 5 arguments for and 5 arguments against god, not 5 arguments that got refuted. This list made 0 arguments. I’m once again dumbfounded that people still believe in god considering there is literally no reason to, as this list shows.

Some people i guess believe in God simply because well the verb to believe exists. To believe means to think something is true (regardless if arguments for it exist or not).
You can think of this as the mile-high club. Many people did it (figuratively) because they found out that the word existed.

there is one thing that throws a monkey wrench in any and all arguments for or against – Einstein’s work!

i would suppose he would come closest to the cosmological argument because he saw that there was purpose from his research, but he could not say where it came from. he is reported to believe in god and, if you stop & think about it, his is the most compelling reasoning for ‘intelligent design’ – science upholding mythology?

that being said, none of the ‘magic’ that the religious attest to is in any way scientific; only the possibility that there may be something that connects everything…

Ewww shameless. The internet would just go to listverse to read its lists, not your blog, so you must be trying to drum up hits. Well, I went to your blog and its terrible. And you are a terrible person. A terrible person with a terrible blog.

I thoroughly enjoy tackling this topic in a philosophical way. This list is well put together, and an interesting and fun read.

What I dislike is the venom lists like this unleash in the comments section. You have the believers acting sanctimonious and lumping all scientists and atheists together. I am sure there are scientists who believe in God, just as there are atheists who don’t know the first thing about physics.

On the other side, you have atheists grouping all believers with religious fanatics, terrorists, and child molestors. I’m sure everyone has skeletons in the closet, but I doubt anyone at Easter mass last week has ever killed anyone in the name of religion.

Simply put, there are extremes on both sides, and on both sides there are varying degrees of good and bad people. When you come on here and brand all believers superstitious idiots or all atheists amoral douchebags, you sound more like you’re trying to convince yourself than convince the rest of us.

Obviously, this comment section is here for us to present our own views and opinions, but it is foolish to think you’ll convert anyone to your side, especially with nasty name calling. A true believer in God does not need to get angry at someone spewing blasphemies on an online message board. Likewise, why should an atheist care so deeply about someone else’s faith to attack that person for it?

Like I said, great list! I hope it made everyone think and reflect on their own beliefs, which is a good practice for everyone from time to time.

The final argument fails as if there has to be a first cause, who caused god? I know most people who use this argument to ‘prove’ their god exists and say, “everything has to have a cause…except god.” Which to me is a circular argument.

It puzzles me when people say that to do one thing or another is against Gods will. How can anything that happens be against the will of God? If God did not want something to happen then it wouldn’t happen, otherwise God wouldn’t be God now would She.

Atheism has become really trendy lately, with those who embrace it claiming that people who don’t are somehow delusional. This is fanaticism in reverse. I believe in God, I’m also in my 2nd year of med school and consider myself fairly rational. As long as belief in a Creator doesn’t harm anyone, what’s the point in arguing against it? Live and let live. If atheists and evangelicals ever got over their respective hysteria, and instead focused on issues that affect us all, the world would be a better place.

As long as belief in a Creator doesn’t harm anyone, what’s the point in arguing against it? Live and let live.

The problem is that fundamentalist beliefs ARE harming people every day, what with the blatant intolerance toward homos.exuals which results in discrimination and the stripping of civil rights, to the attempts to infiltrate and corrupt the public schools’ curriculum by masquerading these beliefs as a legitimate “science” and under the guise of “offering alternative theories” to our impressionable children than those established by years of accumulated empirical evidence and research using accepted scientific methodologies and practices. If you don’t think there is a greater (and harmful) agenda among Creationists and their ilk, you are being a little naïve. It’s like an insidious virus attempting to infiltrate every nook and cranny possible until it gains enough of a foothold to be able to promulgate unabated. You don’t want these “innocent beliefs” left unchecked, as before you know it the small number of zealots become large numbers, to the point where that potential majority will have us ALL living in an oppressive puritanical society. Live and let live, indeed…

The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with the nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen it to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.”
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

The support of the existence of god is more often about making the evidence fit the facts, than it is about finding evidence that actually does fits the facts.

The premise of theologically proving the existence of god is foolish, as from a philosophical standpoint, one can come up with a line of reasoning to prove just about anything one wants. Most of the arguments listed here come across sounding more like Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on first” baseball skit. Seriously, these circuitous arguments come across sounding like “what came first, chicken or the egg?”
A person attempting to prove the existence of god is running an illogic circuit. It is taking a complex thing, ie the universe and human existence, and creating a more complex thing, ie a creator/god, to explain how the universe and humanity could exist. A paradox is created. It creates an even more perplexing, difficult and unlikely solution to the problem, as in how then did this all powerful creator com to exist and what is it’s motivation for the creation? The usual answer is that this creator brought itself into being. But, intelligent, conscious, complex life forms don’t form first, they first evolve from lower life forms. The only way this god exists is if it is a fully evolved being, which would mean that it evolved from another species, which would make it an alien.
But I prefer the logic of Stephen Hawkings who stated in his new book – The Grand Design, “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to set the Universe going.” I also do not believe in the existence of any of the variety of gods and deities we have invented over the eons.
Simply put, Gods are Frauds.

Flamehorse says the list deals with the Judeo-Christian God but the arguments (if valid) prove the existence of all supreme beings past, present and future – which is absurd. The Judeo-Christian God is well defined with particular traits e.g. Trinity, Love, Infinity etc and a well known history. None of the arguments are specific to the biblical God. Number 1 is the god of the gaps. Numbers 5, 3 and 2 make no sense to me. Number 4 is fantasy: it ignores the facts and does not explain how we decide which religious teachings are good and which are bad e.g. intolerance, racism, censorship, hell etc or how we decide which of the biblical commandments to follow and which to discard e.g. slavery, killing witches and homosexuals, working on the Sabbath, etc? Think about it. How do you decide? How come we all make different choices?

I love these debates along with Political ones, where either side feels that deep down there going to alter some anonymous persons world view via the internet. If someone believes in nothing, you spewing out random personal spiritual beliefs isn’t going to change the others point of view. Personally, I’m a spiritual person but we’re all entitled to our own belief system regardless of what it is.

Except belief in god is in decline ‘nowadays’ compared to its all time high in the ‘olden days’. It’s because the church has lost its grip on the hearts and minds of the people and the education of their children. At last.

God made the world in seven days, and on the seventh day he made man. Okay, whatever. But then how do you explain the fossil evidence that shows dinosaurs existed millions of years before man did? I went to Catholic school for nine years, and no teacher would ever answer this. The proof is here, the evidence of God’s non-existence is right in front of our faces.

Actually God was chowing down on some fried dinosaur while he was building the universe (hungry work) and the fossils we have are basically crumbs that fell from his humungous God-beard and god mixed in.

i have to add one more argument, but it doesn’t have a name. it comes from a movie called “The Ruling Class” that starred Peter O’Toole. he played a paranoid-schizophrenic who was in direct line to the British throne, BUT he thought he was Jesus Christ!

he went around doing all the good things we’ve heard that Jesus did. he was a good man, and very logical. for example,

in a discussion with an elderly woman who came to see him at his castle, she asked him how he knew he was god. his answer was brilliant:

“It’s simple, Madam. Every time I pray to him, I find I’m talking to myself.”

works for me…

oh, by the way, when they cured him he turned into Jack the Ripper and went around killing everyone. figures…

in this list science is debunking religeon’s greatest reasons, but lets see a list where religeon tries to debunk science’s greatest reasons. i suspect the religeous counter arguments will be lame in comparison

PEOPLE, PEOPLE please dont use HUMANS that call themselves “religious” as a reason for why you’re an atheist. its human nature to make mistakes, our environment can cause us to be ignorant. just because your “religious” cousin is a bad person doesnt mean God doesnt exist. remember, the ideas to follow GOD, not christians, or muslims, or jews, or whatever other religious observers there are. (im a muslim, btw, 100% beleiver of God’s existence)
oh, and some atheist down there need to cool it. “deluded Godfags” is okay, but GOD FORBID i call atheists “dirty sinners”? doesnt make sense to me, just sayin’

If you look at evolution, it is a contrivable equation that humans had souls. The soul almost had a coin roller mentality: the bank only takes a full roll. If at any time god had interfered after creation will make science impossible. His interruption will affect all the universe but he should have had a working plan to avoid this.

See, what everyone is doing here is assuming that everyone has the same sense of right and wrong. When people say “religion causes wars,” they are assuming that wars are universally accepted to be bad. Now of course, I agree that wars are, in fact, an incredible evil, and an awful occurrence, but that is, if morality is not universal, simply a private thought of my own. However, you and I do not believe this. There would be no sense in arguing about the morality of actions if we did not all have the same sense in right and wrong. It is by this universal sense that we actually judge every action to be either in accordance with this universal conception, or not. Some people, you may say, have different moralities because their ideology is abhorrent to you, and therefore morality is not universal. A good example of this would be the principles of the Nationalsozialismus Party as it appeared in Germany in the early 1930’s. Now, we condemn their actions not simply because we personally do not like them. I detest beets, but do not think that beets are evil because I do not like them. What we are doing when we condemn their actions is putting them up against a standard. Something like this Natural Law has been found in every world philosophy except for one of its most recent, and one I believe to be false, naturalistic materialism. Evidence of the similarity of this law can be found in the appendix of an excellent book, The Abolition of Man.
Also, I am perfectly pleased with this post, as it finally demonstrates that this is not in fact a perfectly unbiased source. Finally, we may see the latent secularism, and take posts with a grain of salt.

I believe that number 1 is misleading and is contrary to what St. Thomas of Aquinas taught… Perhaps the error is in what Aquinas stated: ” Creatio non est mutatio..” For a better understanding of Aquinas, this is a good reading material:

I’m atheist therefore it’s hard to argue the possibility of “God” or even religion without me being objective, the main two flaws with religion is “God” is believed to always existed but since there is a cause for everything humans have the thought at nothing can happen without a cause so by that logic it’d be impossible for god to have always existed the second flaw is there is no real evidence of such a being to exist religion simply might never be proven or even disproven. I’m just being realistic really actually think about it, i’m not trying to change your opinion on religion

Not trying be rude just stating my opinions; the particle that created the big bang, did it always exist? And is there such evidence proving that this particle even existed, i know im not proving god to exist anymore than already, this is just somthing that came to mind.

Humans, we have natural thought of what we think is right, what we think is wrong. Example-Wrong: say if you bad the power to kill all criminals would you (The obvious answer is no) but some would say yes, but i agree at no matter how awful or disgusting i wouldn’t do that, of course if you said yes the intention would be is to make the world a better place but this isn’t how it should be done it’s morally wrong to kill another human. Right: If someone thinks at they are right then it’s hard to assume if they are right really if someone thinks they are right it’s merely an opinion not fact.

Humans, we have natural thought of what we think is right, what we think is wrong. Example-Wrong: say if you had the power to kill all criminals would you (The obvious answer is no) but some would say yes, but i agree at no matter how awful or disgusting i wouldn’t do that, of course if you said yes the intention would be is to make the world a better place but this isn’t how it should be done it’s morally wrong to kill another human. Right: If someone thinks at they are right then it’s hard to assume if they are right really if someone thinks they are right it’s merely an opinion not fact.

Dear atheists: you are just as unreasonable and intolerant about your religion (that you refuse to call a religion) as you claim other religions’ followers are.

I believe God exists. While there are reasonable arguments I can make regarding my beliefs, ultimately, my belief is based on faith. So is yours. Whatever you believe about God, whether he exists or not, it’s a belief, based on faith.

You have faith that your reasoning skills are complete and capable of determining the nature of the universe and its Creator. You have faith that God (who you cannot prove does or does not exist) does or does not exist.

I disagree – a lack of faith does not equate to a faith in that lack of faith. In fact, in my particular instance it translates as doubt. Doubt that kept piling up until it cannot be denied. That’s not faith, that’s reasoning. And it’s not the same at all. Faith requires no reason; in fact it often requires the exact opposite; it requires the suspension of disbelief. Much like when you’re watching The Matrix. To really enjoy it, you must swallow all sorts of hokum.

I have faith that there is a chair in the room I am in right now. If you don’t believe the chair in the room I am in exists, then you don’t lack faith in the chair… you have faith that the chair isn’t actually there.

And you would be wrong… there is a chair in this room… unless you want to walk down some sort of Platonistic line of the chair not really being the chair, but being an image of the true chair in Heaven… but then that would just be weird.

You seem to equate faith and knowledge. I don’t. Knowing the chair is there because you see it is knowledge. Faith that your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you? That’s just silly. Unless of course we’re going all esoteric….are we just a dream within a dream, within a….. pfft, still silly. And a fruitless exercise.

btw you could probably chill a bit. I often take umbrage at Flamehorse’s lists. Often seem to me to be far too judgmental and self-serving. And I tell him each and every time. Pretty sure he ignores me now; but I don’t make it personal. And my usual condemnations don’t apply to this particular list. As far as the wiki thing? He apologized for the lack of attribution and Jamie does pay the wiki licence fee, so it’s not stealing. Cheating a bit maybe, but not stealin’. I’d hate for you to blow a gasket – Flamehorse has lots of fans, and as long as he’s willing, Jamie’s going to indulge them. On a personal note, if I was Jamie, I’d publish Flame’s lists too. Just because I don’t agree or appreciate them…it’s not all about me.

I think I may have misled you into thinking that I am atheist. I’m plain ol’ Christian. I understand that you’re annoyed by the fact that I lifted quite a bit of this one from wikipedia, but I’m currently working on one about baseball, and in order to keep the stats and facts and numbers straight, I just peruse the ol’ wiki and copy and paste as I need them. This is not plagiarism. Neither is copying and pasting the facts involved in each of these arguments. I credited the origins of the arguments, but I did forget to mention wikipedia in the opening paragraph; nonetheless, since wikipedia is public domain, it’s a minor oversight. The only other option is to paraphrase the source, and in general, there was no need, since the passages were already phrased just fine for me.

I don’t think you’re an atheist. I think you’re a plagiarizing list writer who couldn’t research the direction he was walking in 2 seconds ago.

First, Wikipedia is NOT in the Public Domain. Your “minor oversight” is a violation of copyright law. Material on Wikipedia is copyrighted and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (and partially under the GNU Free Documentation License). This means that the media on Wikipedia is owned by the Wikimedia Foundation. The Attribution license, at the very least, requires you to ATTRIBUTE any material you use from the site as being from Wikipedia.

Additionally, basic writing ethics tell you that if you borrow text from another author, you attribute that author via referencing so that the reader knows that you’re not just pulling stuff out of your butt. If you borrow that material without attributing, it’s commonly considered to be “stealing” someone else’s ideas to present them as your own.

I can’t help but ask you what part of all that you expect me to care about. I’ll continue writing lists, and I’ll write them my way. So what’s the goal of your petulant indignation? The last word is yours to have.

If atheism is a religion then abstinence is a s.xual position. If atheism is a religion then health is a disease. If atheism is a religion then off button is a TV channel. If atheism is a religion then bald is a hair colour.

Atheism is a faith-based position on the non-existence and nature of God. It’s got its own beliefs (God doesn’t exist), its own morals (everything from “do what you want” all the way to “behave in a way that society thinks is OK”), its own conclusions about the afterlife (it doesn’t exist), its own spiritual leaders and theologians (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens), and its own evangelists (the atheists on this board).

Nice twisting of words there buddy. Atheism is *not*, I’ll repeat just for you, NOT a faith-based position, it’s the exact opposite! It’s not a “belief in non-existence of gods”, it’s NOT believing in gods, or in other words *rejection of belief*. Do you understand what NOT means there? It means the opposite of believing. How could you possibly confuse “not something” as “something”?? You are not a chair, therefore you are a chair??

Further more, “nature of god”? How could an atheist have a “faith-based position” about something he doesn’t believe to exist?

And finally, atheism says nothing about afterlife, atheism comes from Greek “atheos”, which means “without god” or “godless”. That’s all that is. Everything else you want to assume about atheists is just sheer prejudice. You may be confusing atheism with scepticism.

And no, we don’t have “theologians” and “evangelists”, we’re just ordinary people who are sick and tired of religious oppression. Dawkins may be considered a leader only in the sense that he’s spread the word that it’s okay to be an atheist and freed many minds from the shackles of religious submission.

You believe in atheism. You have no evidence to back up your position. You have no proof. You have nothing other than your personal belief and assertion that God doesn’t exist and the rest of us are being silly and you’re being smart.

That’s called “faith”. It may not be “faith” in God, but it DOES require faith: faith in your own abilities to draw a correct conclusion of the nature of God (e.g. whether God exists or not), faith in the conclusions of others who encouraged this position, etc.

By the way, courtesy of the dictionary:

FAITH: something that is believed especially with strong conviction.

You have a strong conviction that God doesn’t exist. That makes atheism your religion. And yes, it is a religion. Again, the dictionary:

RELIGION: a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe

You believe in a cause of the universe (it just happened), the nature of the universe (it is complete without any spiritual assistance), and the purpose of the universe (presumably, to simply exist and enjoy life until you die).

First of all, Atheism is a lack of belief in God/gods and thus doesn’t require evidence. If you didn’t leave a comment on this page and there was no evidence that you had left a comment on this page then would you be required to provide evidence that you didn’t leave a comment? No, because the lack of evidence that you DID leave a comment is the evidence that you didn’t. It’s not up to Atheists to disprove God/gods as the complete lack of evidence for the existence of God/gods is all the evidence they require to NOT believe.

Most reasonable Atheists admit that if there was suddenly irrefutable evidence for the existence of God/gods they would then be converted because it would no longer require blind faith/belief. They would then have the evidence that they require and “belief” would no longer be relevant. Skeptic is perhaps a better name than Atheist.

Second, Atheism is a loaded word as it specifically implies a lack of belief in God/gods. A lot of us who are labeled Atheists are actually more akin to Nihilists. I, for example, not only don’t believe in God/gods/heaven, I don’t believe in any reason or special purpose for life other than living. It is, if you will, a complete lack of belief. So by your definition I would believe in a lack of belief? A believer of non-belief? Are you saying it’s impossible to NOT believe in something? If I completely reject the idea of any system of belief and simply live day to day for the sake of living, because that’s all there is to me, what is it that I believe in?

“First of all, Atheism is a lack of belief in God/gods and thus doesn’t require evidence.”

Funny… so you think that religion requires evidence, but atheism does not? Why do you believe atheism should be held to a lower standard?

“Most reasonable Atheists admit that if there was suddenly irrefutable evidence for the existence of God/gods they would then be converted because it would no longer require blind faith/belief.”

Ah, but therein is the problem with atheism. Atheism requires specific points of faith for those people to come to their conclusion:

1. Faith that there is a complete lack of evidence for the existence of God.

2. Faith that what evidence there is to back up their beliefs can be viewed, studied, and understood by human beings.

3. Faith that the same standards and laws of nature we experience on our tiny speck in the universe apply to all tiny specks in the universe.

Etc.

“Second, Atheism is a loaded word as it specifically implies a lack of belief in God/gods. A lot of us who are labeled Atheists are actually more akin to Nihilists.”

Actually, I’d say that most atheists lean towards the existential branch, in that they believe that the importance of their existence is that they exist. Positive atheism, as it were. True nihilists, who reject any reason or purpose in life, ultimately become suicide risks because they see no purpose in their own lives.

“So by your definition I would believe in a lack of belief?”

No, because you do not have a lack of belief… you simply believe in the lack of a God, reason, or purpose.

Lets move away from the words Atheism/Atheist since, as I said previously, they’re loaded words and can be misleading. I don’t THINK skepticism doesn’t require evidence, it 100% doesn’t. It is the lack of belief in something UNLESS THERE IS EVIDENCE. By your thinking, in order to not believe in something without first having evidence requires some sort of faith or belief. In what? What do I need to believe in, in order to not believe?

“1.) Faith that there is a complete lack of evidence of God”

There IS a complete lack of evidence for God. I don’t need to have faith as my sense of sight allows me to read and find no evidence. My sense of hearing allows me to listen to scholars and theologians and find no evidence. My reason allows me to understand that there is no evidence. I don’t need to believe in my senses or my reason because I see EVIDENCE of them every waking minute. They are self evident. Do I need to believe in breathing in order to breathe?

“2. Faith that what evidence there is to back up their beliefs can be viewed, studied, and understood by human beings.”

Once again, gibberish. I do not have any “beliefs” that need to be backed up. I simply do not believe until there is evidence.

“3. Faith that the same standards and laws of nature we experience on our tiny speck in the universe apply to all tiny specks in the universe.”

I do not need to BELIEVE or have FAITH in Physics because I have evidence – verifiable, repeatable experiments – that prove the laws of physics as we understand them, to be true. God on the other hand has no evidence, no verifiable tests or experiments that can be repeated to demonstrate the veracity of religious doctrine, therefore, I do not believe.

“True nihilists, who reject any reason or purpose in life, ultimately become suicide risks because they see no purpose in their own lives.”

Incorrect and I’d be curious to hear what you’re basing that assumption on. I live because that’s all I can do because I have an innate desire for life regardless of how pointless & valueless I find it to be. What value is there in non-life for me to kill myself?

“No, because you do not have a lack of belief… you simply believe in the lack of a God, reason, or purpose.”

Then you’re saying it’s impossible not to believe. If I tell you I simply don’t believe, you respond by telling me that I do believe, I just believe that I don’t believe. Again, gibberish. You don’t really believe in God do you? You don’t believe in not-God.

I can’t believe anyone would still believe in God in this age of enlightenment-And when you ask these dumb believers where God came from, they always answer,”He always was”-haha–Let me run through one more time what we intellectuals already know from scientific observation. There was a minute particle of energy, named Irwin, floating along in a void,minding his own business and whistling “Me And My Shadow”. Suddenly Irwin started to expand getting larger and larger. He cried out for help but since he was in a void there was no one. He kept expanding until,yep,he exploded. Pieces of Irwin came raining down-The pieces became stars and planets and moons and Burger King and Disneyworld and well,just everything! On one piece of Irwin there was a slime hole with nothing but slime in it. From that hole came your ancestors and Rosie O’Donnell. I hope this clears it up for you nitwits. Now you see how ridiculous and fantastical it is to believe God created everything. You might ask,”where did Irwin come from? That’s easy-He always was.

#1: This is not an argument as such. If I take the same sentence pattern, and re-apply it, I can get: “No-god exists, provided that it is logically possible for no-god to exist.”
This is as valid as the original statement, and simply defers the “absolute” existence of something to a possibility in the logic realm (i.e. mathematics). If you have studied a few years of mathematics, you will know it has no authority over real-life. We can invent mathematics that are just as valid that bear no similarity to things in real-life. Alternatively the wrong word was used, and “logically possible” means imaginable. Well I can imagine no-god as strongly as god – doesn’t change anything.

#4 I take exception with the second tenet to this. We as humans have defined “morality”, and some aspects of morality have changed over the years (notably sexual taboos are now mostly accepted). Morality is a product of things such as empathy; imagining myself as the subject of my actions – I can decide whether to act or not based on how I would feel in that position, compared with my own motivations for the action regardless of the subjects. This is again, not an argument per definition – but a self-rationalization.

#3 This “argument” is faulty on two main points. A) That the maximum of something, somehow is the cause of all lesser things – this cannot be proven. B) That the maximum of a all “good virtues [which are subjective anyway]” (given tenet A) – is god, this is a definition rather than a proof and in no way suggests that this god of definition is omnipotent. It’s the same as saying “whatever is the coldest ice-cream – is the maker of all other ice-creams, and is the ice-cream god.”
This “argument” instills nothing but a name upon the maximum, and then assumes that it is the progenitor of all others (using Aristotle’s logic).

#2 This “argument” says “if I can’t understand how I think, then I cannot trust what I think, therefore I assume I *can* understand how I think through believing in god”. This is very circular and confusing – I will admit it’s quite clever. The only thing “wrong” with this argument is that it does not extend into objectivity. If you refuse to believe “without complete understanding of my mental faculty, there cannot be a trust in it” – then this argument doesn’t apply. I for one, have nothing more than a vague clue of how my brain works – yet I trust it.

#1
“1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. Nothing finite and contingent can cause itself.”
–Quantum physics says no.

Reluctant atheist here. Fairly religious background; still have a perfect attendance pin from Sunday school and a Roman Catholic Priest for an Uncle – I would like the comfort of faith. Problem is the more I learn, the less I believe.

What I do know for sure is that Religion today, Fundamentalist Religion to be precise, is doing its very best to drag us all back to the dark ages. It’s time to move on – the trick is to do it without losing the benefits of organized Religion – a sense of community and of community responsibility.

Good thought provoking list Flamehorse. Excellent try too, although I’m still not convinced. Takes a bit more than ephemeral arguments for me to make the leap. :)

IF men followed god’s teachings and laws there wouldnt be any wars and such radical religous movements. Also im pretty sure no god tells its believers to kill but we misinterpret the messages and whole point of religions.

For what it’s worth, the Big Bang was a quantum mechanical event and requires no cause. Our sense that we live in a strictly causal world is a consequence of the fact that when dealing with large numbers of events what we see are the deterministic statistical probabilities rather than the stochastic nature of individual occurrences. (If you don’t know what that means go ask an owner of a casino.) And yes, I do have a PhD in Physics. LOL Say goodbye to the cosmological argument, which is the only one of these arguments that is not frankly silly on its face. “God?” Give me a break.

For the first time in history we have a scripture with built-in proof of divine authorship – a superhuman mathematical composition, the Quran.

Put aside all stereotypes and whatever you know. Simple to understand, impossible to imitate. Every word, every chapter, every verse and every other element is mathematically composed, characterised by a unique phenomenom never found in any human authorised. Many of the so called ” muslims” disapprove of this amazing, spectactular, awesome proof for the existance of God.

The quran was revealed to the prophet over 1400 years ago. Every element in the quran is based on the number 19, known as the mathematical miracle of quran.

[Quran 74:30] Over it is nineteen.

[Quran 74:31] We appointed angels to be guardians of Hell, and we assigned their number (19)

(1) to disturb the disbelievers,

(2) to convince the Christians and Jews (that this is a divine scripture),

(3) to strengthen the faith of the faithful,

(4) to remove all traces of doubt from the hearts of Christians, Jews, as well as the believers, and

(5) to expose those who harbor doubt in their hearts, and the disbelievers; they will say, “What did God mean by this allegory?” God thus sends astray whomever He wills, and guides whomever He wills. None knows the soldiers of your Lord except He. This is a reminder for the people.

Majority of so called “muslims” do not live their life by the quran, although they claim. Like most other major religions of the world, it has become corrupted by man-made innovations called hadith and sunna( apparent sayings of the prophet muhummad, written 250 yrs after his death and are full of nonsense and lies!)

But things are going to change over the next 200 years. Submission will prevail, as it is part of God’s awesome plan.

[The Final Testament/Quran 2:62]

Surely, those who believe, those who are Jewish, the Christians, and the converts; anyone who (1) believes in God, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life, will receive their recompense from their Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve.

There is an infallible mathematical proof for God’s existance, and can never be imitated by a human being.http://www.submission.org

I will never understand why people feel the need to stick their oar in and get nasty. I’m talking about people on both sides. I’m not religious, but I believe that no one has any right to tell anyone what they should and shouldn’t believe. Preachy atheists are just as bad as preachy Christians. When people start trying to tell others how to behave, I have a huge problem. Faith (or lack thereof) should be a personal thing. If only it could remain that way…

Humanity isn’t at the point where it can make a definitive judgement on something as large scale as “God”. We still don’t know everything that goes on in our own bodies. on our own planet and know very little about the space around us. How could we be qualified to try and make a judgement on whether or not some omnipotent being created in the Universe…Maybe when we’ve gotten to the level of intelligence where we stop bombing the shit out of one another we can start theorizing again.

But per the moral argument: to judge the Crusades as immoral indicates that there is a universal recognition that there IS a right & a wrong, not that there are universally held concepts of what right & wrong ARE.

I love a list that gets everyone talking! I find it odd that certain fundamentalists arrogantly proclaim that to do certain things is against the will of God. How can anything happen against Gods will? Surely nothing can happen unless God wills it, and if it could then God wouldn’t be God now would She?

Cosmological arguments true problem is that we have never seen anything begin to exist. We have only observed the rearrangement of what has already existed. Something can’t come from nothing, but the opposite is true as well. Something can never become nothing, since something exists, there has never been nothing.

It is great to have something to talk about. It would be greater to see how speedy we move in every single topic. The notion of God is unanimous and is called in many different ways. But we don’t have to be confused with expressions like: First cause, creator, beginning and the like. In other words, we don’t have to make a problem out of nothing!

The God of the bible (specifically the old testament) does not exist, that that small, petty minded deity of cruelty and punishment and jealousy and neediness (yes needy…??!) could ever be considered as a superior intelligent creator is something I consider ridiculous. A God of infinite compassion and wisdom on the other hand, I have no need to believe in, because it just is. The idea of belief indicates a degree of doubt. Knowing on the other hand….

It is just sad to noticed that even after many millennia, we are still in the same place. Because we are still haven’t understood that, our “World Peace” lies in celebrating our differences and our diversity!

Proof of existence of God will be discovered after death – something we all will experience, (and no, it’s never too late) and luckily for us there are many people who have been pronounced dead and then been revived and who have stories to tell of their experiences. http://www.near-death.com/

This argument will never end mainly because of three reasons; Atheists view Christians as uneducated simpletons, who don’t believe in science or evolution, Christians; view Atheists as immoral people who stand against their way of life. And the main reason is because no one is mature enough or civilized enough to respect another persons opinion. I know just as many polite and considerate atheists as i know rude and immoral Christians. And even thou i’m a christian i believe in evolution and take science as fact. The truth is science and atheism are two different things, and religion and god are two separate things (believe it or not). Bashing someones belief or non belief doesn’t make your opinion more right or more important than theirs, and it certainly wont persuade them to think you are right, it just makes the other side angry and think that they, themselves, are right, because i know that criticizing my faith will not persuade me to give up my religion. I wish people could grow up and learn to respect everyone opinion, because someone else belief doesn’t affect your way of life.

This argument will never end because people insist on using generalizations and stereotypes. BS that most atheists believe Christians or other Religious folk to be simpletons. And BS that most Christians believe that atheists are immoral road blocks to salvation. That’s just the loud-mouthed obnoxious ones. The vocal minority if you will.

The comments I find most annoying are those from people who a) talk about God as if they and only they are privy to his secrets and intentions, or b) insist on referring to their individual and personal deity as ‘God’.

If there is a supreme being why would he only bestow the ‘truth’ upon a rather unremarkable minority?

And why do non-believers in the biblical God insist on referring to their deity as ‘God’? It shows a lack of imagination in my opinion. Pastafarians have the right idea with their god’s name. I mean, in the past we had names like Zeus, Poseidon and Ahura Mazda. ‘God’ is just boring. Shame on you!

In my humble opinion the facts support the view that atheists are more intelligent and more moral than Christians. Also, atheism is just a statement of non-belief – nothing else. On the other hand, I will not even begin to list the things gods and religion promote and encourage. Just read Hitchens’ “God is Not Great”. Also, I cannot understand how one can be a Christian and accept evolution. What about Adam and Eve, original sin, Jesus dying on the cross to redeem our sins etc. Surely the two are incompatible. You can believe in evolution and a still believe in a supreme being, yes, but not be a Christian.

Hi,I’m new here and Im very happy that I can post a comment here to share my knowledge.I’m a believer of God.One thing that can prove that GOD really exists is:

1.) What is written in the bible had happen,happening and is to happen.100% there is NO contradiction in the bible.

2.) We all know,killing is a sin,but have you tried to ask yourself why killing a person is sin?When I was a kid,NO ONE told me that killing a person is a SIN BUT why is it that I already knew it?That’s because GOD put those law in our hearts.Before our mother gave birth to us,we already have a set of law in our hearts that GOD put in there.

3.) In the book of REVELATION(about the four horses) – It is exactly the “event” that happened,happening and about to happen.

There’s also unique information in the bible that not all knowa about it.

Like:

1.) There is no female angel

2.) Not all people will experience death

3.) A woman should have a long hair to avoid fallen angels

4.) A man should have a short hair.

-QUESTION:I saw some photos of Christ showing he has a long hair.Is that really Christ?He set a rule that a man should have short hair,then Christ himself will not abide on it?Does it sound logical?

A priest’s daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death. (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)

But if this charge is true (that she wasn’t a virgin on her wedding night), and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her fathers house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father’s house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. While he was on his way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him. “Go up baldhead,” they shouted, “go up baldhead!” The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two shebears came out of the woods and tore forty two of the children to pieces. (2 Kings 2:23-24 NAB)

Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants. (Isaiah 14:21 NAB)

If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey, I will inflict you with seven more disasters for your sins. I will release wild animals that will kill your children and destroy your cattle, so your numbers will dwindle and your roads will be deserted. (Leviticus 26:21-22 NLT)

The original bible is written on rocks,hardened clays.etc. . .Have you tried to engrave a ” single” letter on a rock?It’s very difficult and would really consume time.right?So,when a person wrote an event,law,etc.on a rock(providing it’s not a single letter but thousands of letter),it’s not only a hobby but what he is writing is very important.Am I correct?If I will engrave a letter on a rock,I will NOT engrave a NON-SENSE things.To cut the story short,All the things written in the Bible are true(Including the existence of God).Is that logical?

Eh, this is really for Christians because if you’re spiritual you probably believe something completely different. Therefore, it’s hard to prove or disprove God. Science hasn’t managed to do it and perhaps never will. There’s a gaping hole reserved for a possible omniscient/omnipotent being in the existence of all the unknown (hint: it’s a pretty big unknown).

Not to mention if something is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-affecting it’s hard for it to exist within the confines of benevolence or malevolence. Quit simplifying the argument. God does not need to be an event or describe thing because it is all things. Everything. Not a man, not a woman, not good, nor bad. But everything. It does not act. Just exists. Outside the confines of our minds and time itself.

TL;DR: This is freaking old, unimportant shit. If you don’t believe DON’T BELIEVE. And I say this as an Atheist.

#1 has a logical fallacy in the counter-argument, not on behalf of the writer but on behalf of the argument he presented –

#1 accidentally leads way to the “who created God?”

But on the other side of the spectrum, isn’t the Big Bang essentially a god-like figure? By creating the universe, it has extreme power that we can’t even comprehend. What created the big bang? What created the existence before hand? When did existence start, and is it even POSSIBLE for existence to start? What is the origin of existence?

You can science all you want, the big bang theory still has huge logical fallacies that make it worth looking into. I’m not saying I don’t believe in the big bang theory, I’m saying that to deny God by explaining that it could have been a big bang – that’s essentially like saying that God did it, except instead of it being intelligent, it’s not.

Other than the idea of supernatural intelligence creating life and existence, there really is not that many differences between God and the Big Bang. Thus, you can’t use the “who created god?” argument to cancel out number 1. It seems more likely that God created the Big Bang than that the Big Bang created everything, and there was absolute nothingness before. Chance does not work that way.

Then I’m sure you realize that you can replace the word “God” with “something” and still be correct without losing any meaning. Your God would be one in name only, and no description from any major religion (who in fact coined the term God) would fit it.

I don’t “believe” in atheism. There’s literally nothing to believe in. And you tell me you don’t twist words. I don’t need to produce any evidence, but *you do*. You’re the one who claims that gods exist, prove it. When you prove they exist, you can bet your ass I’ll “believe” in them. If you want to call *trust* in scientific evidence and scientific method a “faith-based position”, fine, that’s your problem. But don’t push it on others, this is not everyone else’s definition of “faith”.

If you want more semantics, let me ask you this. You believe in gods. I say that’s an atheism-based position. Congratulations, you are now an atheist. Do you define yourself as atheist? Whatever your answer is, you lose. So don’t play with semantics.

I’ll repeat it again: if atheism is a religion, then *not* collecting stamps is a hobby.

Much like flamehorse above, I’m not interested in continuing this debate, especially since you want to discredit atheism by calling it a religion. Though that may speak volumes about religions in general. I wish you the best in life.

It amazes me that one cannot see the “order of the universe”, the way our bodies work, the different species, plants, etc. and think that it just came into existence. If we evolved from moneys, why are there still monkeys and why is there no further evolution? I feel sorry for these people at the end of their lives when they realize the truth and it will be too late.

We didn’t evolve from monkeys. Humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor. This is common misconception born from the inability to understand the difference, but said difference is in fact pretty big.
Also, who says that there is no further evolution? Evolution isn’t something you can perceive over a fortnight. It takes several generations for a new trait to get fixed in a population.

You would know all this if you tried to, oh I don’t know, READ about it.

I don’t think that any of the arguments for the existence of God are very convincing, and I don’t think any argument against the existence of God is particularly convincing either. I believe in the existence of God but I will have nothing to do with religion. I believe in Jesus but I would be embarrassed to call myself a Christian.I believe in evolution and I don’t think that God is such a deceiver and a liar and a con-man fraud that God would create the earth with the dinosaur fossils already there. (What, to cheat us!?!? Some God of truth huh!) I was brought up in an agnostic family who were supportive of any belief I chose to adhere to on the matter. I’ve never not believed in God, yet I don’t think that believing or not believing makes anyone superior or lesser. And I certainly don’t think it makes one iota of difference to God either way, being the loving compassionate Source that She is, She accepts us all, flaws and all.(I am just saying “She” because I’m against the whole male dominated, patriarchal jealous judgmental God thing that the Christians are so enamored of). Believers or otherwise, all opinions should be respected.

Hmm. I don’t think that any of the arguments for the existence of God are very convincing, and I don’t think any argument against the existence of God is particularly convincing either. I believe in the existence of God but I will have nothing to do with religion. I believe in Jesus but I would be embarrassed to call myself a Christian. I believe in evolution and I don’t think that God is such a deceiver and a liar and a con-man fraud that God would create the earth with the dinosaur fossils already there. (What, to cheat us!?!? Some God of truth huh!) I don’t think that believing or not believing makes anyone superior or lesser. And I certainly don’t think it makes one iota of difference to God either way, being the loving compassionate Source that She is, She accepts us all, flaws and all.(I am just saying “She” because I’m against the whole male dominated, patriarchal jealous judgmental God thing that most fundamentalists are so enamored of). Believers or otherwise, let’s respect one anothers opinions. Free will means exactly that, not “you can do what you like but if you don’t do it “My Way” you are condemned to suffer for eternity”. (What kind of free will is that?) Let each walk his or her own path, and do our best to treat one another with compassion and kindness because no matter what you believe, that is all that matters either way.

FACE IT, the human race is in its infancy. so much more to learn and understand. at this point non believers and believers are both equal in their arguments against and for a supreme being. lets give it another couple thousand years or more before we fight about what is now a totally unanswerable question.

Yes! I agree. There was a time when almost everyone believed that the world was flat until through scientific progress it was proven otherwise (no offense to Flat Earthers).The reason God can neither be proved or disproved is simply because we are not advanced enough in either science or spirituality (that’s spirituality NOT religion,) so yes, maybe in a few thousand years time….

this entire list is moot because it requires a belief in time being linear. this list should have been written by someone with a basic understanding of philosophy, physics, astronomy, and religion. not to mention no ability to comprehend the idea of something being infinite. thanks for wasting my time with arguments that sound like they were created by middleschoolers. this list is embarassing.

Im an atheist, Im not a bad person, my friend is a christian, also not a bad person.
Atheists murder people!
Christians murder people!
Atheists save lives and make the world a better place, christians save lives and make the world a better place.
People arguing and judging people for believing different things are wasting their time.
If you see someone of a different religion or of no religion, dont hate them, dont judge them or think them inferior to you. As long as a religion doesn’t interfere with anothers human rights etc, leave it be. The moment people start killing others as a direct result of religion then we should worry…..oh wait..

Yes, but god is a theory, science is a law. There are no “laws” in religion. Therefore it is not a valid source of information. There are many laws in science-Newton’s, gravity, many others. Therefore it is a valid source of information.

The “war” between religion and science is probably the greatest tragedy in human history, it shouldn’t be a war.
Human aspiration and hope is probably our greatest attribute, and in the days before we had effective mass communication, people told stories to share experiences and knowledge. God was a simple effective mechanism to inspire people and join them together.
This is why there are so many different religions, it was the spark of humanity gaining different faces for different peoples and places.
Today we achieve great things, and we share them through science and teaching. Science is just a new “face” for God, and it is so much more exciting than some gray beard in the sky.
To me God is the collective effort of man towards light. People who discard knowledge, are committing a crime against themselves and against countless passionate people who devote their lives to understanding the world.
We shouldn’t be waging war, but building bridges.

Well why can’t everyone just believe whatever the hell they want and when we all die we’ll all find out the truth anyway so who gives a crap! Leave people to believe what they want to believe so long as it’s not harming another person or creature or nature, it’s fine by me!

Chevy! We can’t be indifferent to each other. We are interconnected and interdependent. We have to learn how to accept and respect each other through dialog and discussions. Everybody is unique, that’s where our beauty and life excitement come from!

I suppose you’d love to hear what kind of vegetables I like then. After all, we can’t be indifferent to each other.
Seriously though…Discussion is fine but by no means a necessity. We can interconnect without knowing each other’s religious or political views.

Reason for Religion: Man Fears Death. Reason for Atheism: Man Seeks Understanding. Reason for Hatred Between the two: Man who seeks understanding finds solace in logic and science and is at peace with own mortality. Man who fears death is delusional with fear and therefore can never be persuaded with logic because he is delusional and therefore Man who seeks understanding thinks hes a delusional shithead :)

Funny how your statement works, “Reason for Religion: Man fears death.” I have to take that as a personal affront not because I disagree with what you believe, but because as a result of my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, I have no fear of death. I fully have faith in what lies after for me. So my “solace” in the Lord is no different than someone else’s “solace” in seeking logic and science. Just 2 different means to the same end.

Religion is a human construction practiced long before the old testament was written, even the earliest civilizations had spiritual rituals. The church, exploiting the fact that people are insecure about mortality, used their power as the one of the largest groups of the time period(who even had a military, who by the way killed people in the name of God) to construct a man who people could idolize and be at peace with the promise of afterlife for capital gain and to expand their growing empire. They instill in people the “fear of god,” which doesn’t mean that he’s going around smiting objectors, simply the fear of the WRATH of God, or what he is capable of doing if you do not follow his commands(i.e. eternal damnation so not only does your body cease to exist but you will live with most evil beings for all of eternity. That is exactly what the church wants is for you to fear the wrath of God that way as long as what they say is “In the name of God”(i.e. The Crusades), people will not question their actions. After going through 10 years of Catholic School and 6 years as an Alter Server always thought it was weird when people would tell us not to think about atheism or things that were “blasphemous.” I wondered why? Why not let us critically think about what we think is right, instead of censoring everything? Then after serious contemplation I realized, “Warriors of Christ”(which is what they told me I needed to become in Catholic School) are scared that people will see the substantial lack of evidence for God. People also are scared about what the world would be like without a god. Think of this, often times-not always, people preform good works and charity because God told them to or they want to be seen as good in the eyes of God. However, an atheist who does good works and charity does it not for God they do it for the greater good and the opportunity to help someone.

I’m not a huge fan of organized religion. I do believe in God though and christianity is my chosen religion. I think a big problem people have with religion is the fact that most religious people that spend their time talking about it and trying to push it on others are fanatics or people that are not very educated about the the religion they have chosen and misrepresent it. True followers of Christs teachings are more often the ones who never even tell you they are Christians, they just live it as best they can and others see the love of God reflected in them and by their example not their words do they lead people to God. I have never seen a picture to prove Gods existance but I do see evidence of Him everyday. An unselfish act, a kind word of encouragement, a stranger showing compassion for a person in need, someone doing good even when they think nobody is looking, things like that to me are evidence of God.

When you look at the way we are designed, how the earth is made, how the plants are made, how we are dependent on so many things working and surviving in nature despite what man and beast have done for whatever reasion to hinder our exsistance

How many things have you done, where at every possible point you have done it wrong and you still got the thing you were after

And how many things have you made for the first time, and at every posible piont in the project have you done every thing right as far as you know, and the project went wrong

How much thought and effort does it take to make to do a project

Nothing you have every done is remotely as complicated as your body or as big as the universe or as infinite as an element and all done in 6 days

Look around you and see if you can create what has been created by God

There is a misconception among theists, that atheist do not find the biological world a marvel.

It IS amazing and wonderous.

It is just for people like us, having some random person tell us, with no substantiation, where it came from – with no further detail – and then to rest an entire philosophy on the back of these assumptions – its rather galling.

Especially when our skepticism is treated as a “sin”.

There are unpleasant versions of us out there, sure, but that is no excuse to return the favour.

The air we breathe is 21% oxygen 10%more everything would be burnt 10%less we’d be as worse than climbers
Without the nitrogen in the air we couldn”t survive either (ask a diver)
Without CO2 at around the percentage it is we wouldn’t regulate our breathing properly
There are inputs and output of the different elements in the air continuously and they’ve maintained their equilibrium for 6000 years
Without the moisture in the air, our whole planet would stop living
Without the moisture being suspended at the height it does there would be no rain, no rivers, no anything of value
The gravity produces the Pressure of the air, if our earth was bigger or smaller than it is we wouldn’t be living either
If we were any closer or further from the sun we’d be in desert or Antarctica
If the moon wasn’t there sea life would be limited
The atmosphere inhibits the harmful rays from the sun
I’m fairly sure the magnetic flux of the earth protects us too
That’s 10 good design points that couldn’t have just happened

The 1 and only God made the earth for us and he made us very we’ll for the earth

I am a fool compared to God
We are fools if we say there is no God
And I’d be an even bigger fool to not follow him to an even better home in glory

That is called the anthropomerphic principle and has many interesting facets worthy of discussion.

I think what most atheists are bothered by is the jarringly-too-fast transition from: “Wow, isn’t this amazing!” to “Wow, God is so amazing!”.

There are leaps of assumption there, logical gaps if you like.
There are so many complications with the anthropomorphic principle, such as:

What would life look like if gravity were stronger?
What would it look like if we had an atmosphere of Chlorine?
Under what other conditions can life prevail?

Assuming that the life we can see around us is somehow “special”, that no other worthy form of life could exist and therefore the conditions in which we live are engineered for us specifically, that the universe was specifically built for, and revolves around, us –

Seems like the absolute pinnacle of hubris and arrogance to me.

Now, I don’t mean to challenge your views –

it would be almost as arrogant for me to assume that my explanation has a 100% probability of being the right one (although at another time and place I would argue that the actual percentage is still pretty high) –

But the above is what atheists see when you use your above explanation as “evidence” of God or intelligent design, so hopefully if more people understood that, the religious and secular world can get along a little better.

Just the shape alone of the bones in our bodies is a marvel in design work Try making a robot and you’ll agree that they could never have just happened Try and think a little more like a designer and less like a consumer and you’ll see the logic I can see from your comments that you have little understanding of designing, and if you are a designer you have little appreciation for the detail, effort,logic and different ways that something could be made. I’d also say that you are more of a consumer who can appreciate the wow effect that a product has but very unaware to the labyrinth of effort and thought to make it what it is The missing connection is not in the logic (this is a place comments) What I think is missing more, is it doesn’t “suit you” to believe the truth that is around you

“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: [12] That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”(evolution is one delusion)

I,ll try and explain it simpily in a way you might understand and bring the dots closer together so you can a see the picture more clearly (hopefully without getting too long winded) Im sure you are good at something and can recognise someone else who good at the same thing
When you’ve done design work you recognize a well designed thing Things that are really designed well work well for a long time They dont have unnecessary aspects to them they are refined. Every angle, dimension, shape, sizing, colour, material, position or orientation has a reason or purpose for being there Things that are poorly designed are thrown away sooner or later
Consider a simple pencil and how many ways it could be designed by idiots or nobody. It could be made of water wool ice foam air dirt stone etc It could be a mile or maybe a millimeter long. It could be made of one product or 120 or more. It could be fatter than it is long, or sharp around the edges and blunt on the end etc etc If we stretch our imagination it could be all of them but how many of us would buy one to write on our paper Nobody Ever wondered why the millions of pencils or pens made, are all similar Why are they around 10mm diameter, 180mm long, light weight, pionted(at one end) with lead or ink in the centre? Why are they limited so much to those parameters, Pencils are only a simple thing but they have to be made in exact way and I know a lot of people who will go to a fair amount of effort to get just the right pencil, and I also know company’s will go to a lot of effort to design pencil’s to suit different needs Unless something is designed in its entirety for some purpose it is discarded it is obsolete (even if it has lots of good design aspects) If some thing is not designed it has no value in any way.
If there is no designer there is nothing To design something there is always limitations eg cost restiction(I mean cost in every form not just monetary), time restriction,size restrictions, shape, efficiency, energy, visual, functionality restrictions in thinking of it, producing it, useing it, and usefulness to some purpose etc. These are things that you cannot bypass Some things work really well Some are marginal and some are impossible For example a 30mm rope will lift a for 1ton weight well, a 300mm rope is stupid ,how can you manage a rope that after 15m is 1 ton itself, its like using a 1000ton crane to just lift a pencil up it wont work its not made to do it, and a 3mm string is disaster especially if you’re underneath In the last coment I put above I stated 10 things that were designed well. Now for everything in existence, thats done well, there would be a minimum of 10 ways or designs that would be useless (eg. Legs coming out of flys eyestalks) or disasters, and for every design complication it would multiply up. So for the 10 examples I stated(and there are millions more) there would could be 1:10,000,000,000 chance of getting a goody than a flop (Im realizing more why God wants us to do things right) So to bring to those numbers into reality. There is more chance that there was a designer(God), than there is, that you are a person(7 billion people) who is replying to my comments. (Maybe its a computor and maybe computors will get more Intelligence and, start saying that all the computors so far just evolved by themselves and deny their designers too) I know you exist and I know God exist too And maybe he’s wanting a few more of his Inventions to appreciate what he has actually done. To “love him with all their heart their mind their soul and their strength, and their Neighbour as them self”

When God finished making the World he said; “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”
(this was before the fall and the flood) There are still, lots of good things left around today for us to see and understand if want to When you think of every thing non-man made, It is durable, sustainable, energy efficient as well as enormous work done, generally aesthetically pleasant(depending on the viewpoint), maintenance free, characteristic style, noise at reasonable levels except for a lot of the dangerous situations, generally smells good when its good for us and bad when its bad for us Here’s a quote by Jesus “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? [27] Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? [28] And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: [29] And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

You see we as people were commanded to work because of sin.(the earth was then modified by design. Have you ever thought what that would require, to make us work) Almost everything else on the other hand fairly much happens in auto except were it is designed other wise by God

Because religions are mostly wrong doesnt mean we should come up with another fallacy It doesn’t mean that we should say that God didnt make the universe Coming up with a false theory is like building on sand, it will fail eventually If we want to build on rock we have to the find the truth, obey it and live it And that rock is Jesus whether you believe it or not

What a load of shit that is. My bones are not intelligently designed. I’m 29 and my knees are already shitty, I can barely hold my weight while trying to sit. And I’m not even fat. If that’s by design, god is a horrible designer and should be fired, right after he gives me a big fat cheque.

I’d ask you to explain why our teeth are so shitty as well, but it would serve no purpose.

A designer tries to organise his creation in the best way possible to suit its purpose.

Evolution works in a same way, structures that do not work very well die out and the more efficient arrangements survive.

Ergo, you end up with the same result as if it were designed, but without the need for a supernatural being to intervene.

I will admit that i did not read your entire comment, maybe if you were a little less condescending and understanding that bible quotes are not arguments then it would be a little easier to bring myself to read your babbling.

The earth hasn’t always been as peacefull as you see it right now my friend. Our solar system is 4 to 5 billion years old which is merely the age of the earth and i think u wldnt wanna know how violent it was!!. And gess what, the evolution of the human species took 3 billion years (which is roughly one-fourth of the universe’s age) to bring us to our biological sophistication that u’re astonished with. Yes it is astonishing how all of these conditions happened to be in favor of our comfort. But i think you should start considering the very high possibility (at least for now, before taking it as a historical fact after bothering to do some research and stop being that romantic about things around you man!) that throughout our evolution it has been actually us adapting ourselves, to biologically withstand all the different conditions of the different eras untill our present day. That’s genetics man.

As you can see for yourself those 10 design points did in fact just happen….and without the need for any God. Think of it this way…if they hadden’t have happened then we would not be here having this discussion now. It is simply chance that conditions on earth now support life, but there are an infinate number of ways that that may not have happened, but since they did we can be here to talk about it.

It don’t matter who says what, people forget when growing up materials ment nothing. As they grow, god knows we become attached to such things and fall blind to see anything we condemned against. I see that the whickedness alone is enough for our exile to earth.

sad to see people like u, who i guess, don’t even have a base in the scientific field, still calling religious people non-logic…im a doctor in LA and i still believe in God…and remember evolution is just a theory, that’s all….i realised people , although atheists, but have had higher education bout science, do not call others who believe in creationism and God as non-logic…Even Isaac Newton was a Christian and yet was the father of physics….no offence but u my friend, dont even know what science is all about.

Ha, you lecture on knowledge of science, but you made a fairly large mistake.

Theory’s definition

a coherent group of tested general propositions, regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena

Hypothesis’ definition

a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis)

And even Isaac Newton got things wrong (his theory of gravity), just like you got it wrong with evolution. Just because people are smart doesn’t make them right about everything and just because you have a PhD doesn’t make any crap you might come up with any more credible.

If you are a doctor, like you claim to be, then you should tear up your doctorate certificate, go back to university and start all over again, because you haven’t even learned the basic aspects of science – theory and hypothesis.

It’s a shame you’re allowed to practice in LA while calling evolution “just a theory.” You must not believe in Gravity since it’s also “just a theory.” You should read up on Gravitational Theory, it could enlighten you.

Evolution is just a theory. I believe it; it is still BY DEFINITION, a theory. It’s called the THEORY of evolution. Google it, buy a textbook, whatever. I am right about that. David below you is entirely correct. You, however, lack knowledge in what a theory is. Because remember, he didn’t say it was a hypothesis, his words were “just a theory” which is, in fact, true.

Which is more satisfying… a scientific theory that explains many things or a religious belief that can not be proved or disproved and therefore explains nothing? I will go with the scientific theory. Jim Blok

Look,please get my comment published,i. Can give you a logical dissertation,on how we were created based on the vedic view,accordingly to the vedas,the universe never began,nor will it end,there was no creation nor destruction,it simply existed and will continue to exist forever,if its destroyed,it will be created again,if its created,it will be destroyed again without cessation,becayse energy has no end or beginning,it only transforms from one form to another.now singular existence of an entity called god is impossible,because creation and creator cant be separate,if god created life and matter,and heaven and hell,he must be experiencing them,instead if watching us from somewhere,because he cant detach detach himself from his creation,if all energy comes from him,he must be present in tthe energy or use that energy!!next proof that I give,if god has got all the powers and we are product of his creation,isnt it more logical,that he will be in control of everything from day 1,but here we see in bible and quran god sends a messenger to command people to remember his existence,why will energy forget its source,anyone!!it will Not!!a river never forget its source.why will any human forget or not kniw its creator,or be completely indifferent to follow his orders when his whole being exists because of god because god if wants can take control of everything everywhere,he doesnot need to send orders,if it is his energy,without his will nothing will happen,and if our will is gods will,then why God needs to remind people of his presence,if they all are part of him,he could take control directly,and if this means that our will is different from god,which he needs to bend as per his wishes,then it clearly disproves gods existence because,as I said,creation behaves as per the creators desires,a robot for e.g behaves on how we control it!!and clearly if we human souls originate from god then how could we say who is the god when,every soul and mind has adopted a different religion with completely different ideoligies,it shows completely different ideology from different indiciduals,which is not possible when a single god controls everyone and everyone,so it is disproved!!now the reality is consciousness of every creature is separate only in material form,in spiritual form,everyone is one.so we as consciousness decided to become individual and decided to experience a creation,and so we evolved and changed into all forms of matter and universe.when this desire ceases of every creature in the universe,we will destroy everything and rebuild iur primordial consciousness abd merge will each other.simple!!so god himself is consciousness decides to separate himself as separate souls and they with their infinite energy create universe and then experience it,so I am god,that dog is god,that bird is god,everything is an expression of god which he himself is experiencing through us and all creature,all creature on the universe creates a group consciousness and the total consciousness is god-form experiencing their desires through law of karma,and they in their spiritual form are god heads in their own way,so every soul stands equal to each soul with equal power transfer between each other,so the concept of a single cause and creation diminishes when we will realize nothing ever begins or ends,it only exists as per the will of every being on the universe,who are in reality pure consciousness only suffering an illusion of separation from each other.

Look,please get my comment published,i. Can give you a logical dissertation,on how we were created based on the vedic view,accordingly to the vedas,the universe never began,nor will it end,there was no creation nor destruction,it simply existed and will continue to exist forever,if its destroyed,it will be created again,if its created,it will be destroyed again without cessation,becayse energy has no end or beginning,it only transforms from one form to another.now singular existence of an entity called god is impossible,because creation and creator cant be separate,if god created life and matter,and heaven and hell,he must be experiencing them,instead if watching us from somewhere,because he cant detach detach himself from his creation,if all energy comes from him,he must be present in tthe energy or use that energy!!next proof that I give,if god has got all the powers and we are product of his creation,isnt it more logical,that he will be in control of everything from day 1,but here we see in bible and quran god sends a messenger to command people to remember his existence,why will energy forget its source,anyone!!it will Not!!a river never forget its source.why will any human forget or not kniw its creator,or be completely indifferent to follow his orders when his whole being exists because of god because god if wants can take control of everything everywhere,he doesnot need to send orders,if it is his energy,without his will nothing will happen,and if our will is gods will,then why God needs to remind people of his presence,if they all are part of him,he could take control directly,and if this means that our will is different from god,which he needs to bend as per his wishes,then it clearly disproves gods existence because,as I said,creation behaves as per the creators desires,a robot for e.g behaves on how we control it!!and clearly if we human souls originate from god then how could we say who is the god when,every soul and mind has adopted a different religion with completely different ideoligies,it shows completely different ideology from different indiciduals,which is not possible when a single god controls everyone and everyone,so it is disproved!!now the reality is consciousness of every creature is separate only in material form,in spiritual form,everyone is one.so we as consciousness decided to become individual and decided to experience a creation,and so we evolved and changed into all forms of matter and universe.when this desire ceases of every creature in the universe,we will destroy everything and rebuild iur primordial consciousness abd merge will each other.simple!!so god himself is consciousness decides to separate himself as separate souls and they with their infinite energy create universe and then experience it,so I am god,that dog is god,that bird is god,everything is an expression of god which he himself is experiencing through us and all creature,all creature on the universe creates a group consciousness and the total consciousness is god-form experiencing their desires through law of karma,and they in their spiritual form are god heads in their own way,so every soul stands equal to each soul with equal power transfer between each other,so the concept of a single cause and creation diminishes when we will realize nothing ever begins or ends,it only exists as per the will of every being on the universe,who are in reality pure consciousness only suffering an illusion of separation from each other.
Look,please get my comment published,i. Can give you a logical dissertation,on how we were created based on the vedic view,accordingly to the vedas,the universe never began,nor will it end,there was no creation nor destruction,it simply existed and will continue to exist forever,if its destroyed,it will be created again,if its created,it will be destroyed again without cessation,becayse energy has no end or beginning,it only transforms from one form to another.now singular existence of an entity called god is impossible,because creation and creator cant be separate,if god created life and matter,and heaven and hell,he must be experiencing them,instead if watching us from somewhere,because he cant detach detach himself from his creation,if all energy comes from him,he must be present in tthe energy or use that energy!!next proof that I give,if god has got all the powers and we are product of his creation,isnt it more logical,that he will be in control of everything from day 1,but here we see in bible and quran god sends a messenger to command people to remember his existence,why will energy forget its source,anyone!!it will Not!!a river never forget its source.why will any human forget or not kniw its creator,or be completely indifferent to follow his orders when his whole being exists because of god because god if wants can take control of everything everywhere,he doesnot need to send orders,if it is his energy,without his will nothing will happen,and if our will is gods will,then why God needs to remind people of his presence,if they all are part of him,he could take control directly,and if this means that our will is different from god,which he needs to bend as per his wishes,then it clearly disproves gods existence because,as I said,creation behaves as per the creators desires,a robot for e.g behaves on how we control it!!and clearly if we human souls originate from god then how could we say who is the god when,every soul and mind has adopted a different religion with completely different ideoligies,it shows completely different ideology from different indiciduals,which is not possible when a single god controls everyone and everyone,so it is disproved!!now the reality is consciousness of every creature is separate only in material form,in spiritual form,everyone is one.so we as consciousness decided to become individual and decided to experience a creation,and so we evolved and changed into all forms of matter and universe.when this desire ceases of every creature in the universe,we will destroy everything and rebuild iur primordial consciousness abd merge will each other.simple!!so god himself is consciousness decides to separate himself as separate souls and they with their infinite energy create universe and then experience it,so I am god,that dog is god,that bird is god,everything is an expression of god which he himself is experiencing through us and all creature,all creature on the universe creates a group consciousness and the total consciousness is god-form experiencing their desires through law of karma,and they in their spiritual form are god heads in their own way,so every soul stands equal to each soul with equal power transfer between each other,so the concept of a single cause and creation diminishes when we will realize nothing ever begins or ends,it only exists as per the will of every being on the universe,who are in reality pure consciousness only suffering an illusion of separation from each other.

You sound pretty desperate. I would be too if I were as factually confused as you seem to be. Just one sentence, where you assert that God cannot exist because different ideologies exist is a good example of what I mean. To quote you… “which is not possible when a single God controls everyone and everyone, so it is disproved” God said that “different ideologies’ would exist They prove that people are different and need to learn. Your assertion would make more sense if God had said ” I control everything”, but he didn’t say that…He said the opposite…that we are responsible for what we do with our lives…If you are going to base your belief system on opposing what God says…you should at least make sure you know what he said first…then when you meet Him, at least you can say you got the question right, even if you completely failed to understand his message for you.

Maxwil, you definitely have some intelligent and valid points there. There is nothing that exists that is not God. God is all things and exists in all things.(The alpha and the omega, omnipresent, the great I Am) The illusion that we are all separate is exactly that, an illusion. The purpose of this illusion is for God to experience Godself through all of the universes (seemingly) separate parts. Many people believe in God: they just don’t believe in a God who believes in them. God does believe in them. And God loves them more than most of them know. The idea that God turned silent and stopped talking to the human race a long time ago is false. The idea that God is angry with the human race and kicked it out of paradise is false. The idea that God set Himself up as judge is false. God loves every human being who ever lived, lives now or ever will live. Gods desire is for every soul to return to God, and God cannot fail in having this desire fulfilled. God is separate from nothing, and nothing is separate from God. There is nothing that God needs, because God is everything there is. This is the good news. Everything else is an illusion. God’s greatest truth is that there is not one way only but many ways Home. There are a thousand paths to God, and every one will get you there. Indeed, all paths lead to God. This is because there is no other place to go.

How many letters does those kid carved?thousands of letter?hahahaha.think.if you will SAY they carved hundreds of letter, i might believe you.But,think again,those kids used more advanced tool than the Apostles.

Try to notice also.What’s written in the bible is happening nowadays.Is that coincedence?maybe yes if it happens once,twice or thrice.But Look! It happened a lot of times already and is still happening.

It doesn’t help because God, as you say “if he exists” wont be operating in the interest of those who despise him. Presuming to understand how a Being that you say doesn’t even exist, will operate when He has already made it clear that all he wants is some credit, love & appreciation…is the height of something…perhaps it’s stupidity, or just an unwillingness to admit you are not perfect.

You seem to forget that the Christian god is not the only god that has
been said to exist. Whose to say it isn’t the Muslim god, or the Jewish
god or etc that exists. Pascals Wager is an extremely flawed method of
thinking.

“3. Belief in God is thus preferable to disbelief in God.”
I don’t see how this is an argument, even if it would be true.
You don’t believe in something because you “want to”, you believe in something because you think it makes sense and is likely to be true.

If this list was called “5 Reasons To Believe In God” I’d understand why it would be up there, but morality has no weight to throw around in the existence debate. That’s my two cents.

We cant blame people if they don’t believe in GOD.You already know what is good or bad.Anyway,we will be judged according to our work.If you live your life in a stupid way,then you will be accoutantable for that.I’m not that knowledgable in the Christian Bible.But if you want to test or ask a lot of thingd related to the Bible,I believe this guy can answer ALL YOUR QUESTIONS related to the Christian Bible.Just search this guy on the internet:
Bro.Eli Soriano

Uneducated simpletons? Ever heard of christian theologist with PHD’s that could make you look stupid if you tried to debate with them. Thats a huge stereotype considering that there are MANY doctors, lawyers, and scientist that choose to believe in God simply because science has not dissproven Him yet. They dont know how this universe came into existence, how life began or what life is, or how the mind even works. You can go on thinking your science has explained it all but it hasnt and any smart person can see that.

Uneducated simpletons? Ever heard of christian theologist with PH.D’s? Once against atheist have proven to be capable of the most wide stereotyping than any group ive ever seen. There are MANY doctors, lawyers, and scientist that choose to believe in God. Science hasnt come up with the answers yet. You dont know how the universe came into being, you dont know how life started or what life is, you dont even know how the mind works yet. So, you can go on believing that science has all the answers but it doesnt. So intelligent people will go with their lives still having that intuitive sense, deep in their hearts that there is something bigger out there. That something we call God is real

By calling out that sole atheist that called Christians “uneducated simpletons” (I must’ve missed his/her comment though), you are in fact stereotyping yourself.

Scientists also “get on with their lives”, seeing as they make progress almost daily. They don’t understand life? They can create new species. They don’t know how the mind works? Give them an hour with your brain and they can turn off your faith as easily as one would flip a switch.

Also, “intelligent people” realize that some of the greatest mistakes have been made by relying on intuition.

You stereotyped atheists by claiming that they
stereotype others. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a christian myself, but I disagree with your
claim about science. And bashed science without understanding the thought
structure. Science is (the way I see it) all about doubt. And to believe
in something through science is to get rid of those doubts. I doubt
that gravity exists. I jumped many times and yet I still came back onto
the ground. I guess gravity does exist (until there is an
inconsistency). So they think, I don’t think god answers my prayers. He
didn’t so I guess prayers don’t work. That is the thought process. To
reject that is to ignore what they believe, which in turn means that
they have no reason to consider what you believe. Also I think it is
blind to reject science. (Similar to what Einstein said)

I think
that the problem that many people don’t want to understand Christianity
is that there are too many people with bad arguments. All these bad
arguments muddled with hateful comments. Why should they believe someone
who makes baseless claims (without even a biblical base) and accept
that they will “burn in hell”? Many people cannot take your approach of
there must be something bigger, or look deep inside oneself. Because, as
the thought process goes, I doubt that there is something bigger or I
doubt there is anyone deep inside.

I approach it slightly
different from you. And differently from how many other ppl might approach it. I believe in being a good person. Being a person who
can embody love. I might be faking it to look better in front of
others, or I might be sincere, I don’t know b/c I doubt myself. But I
know I prefer someone smiling than someone frowning, because it makes me
happy. Continuing on, If I die and there is no god, it is fine for me
because I lived my life the way I wanted, a good person. If there is a
god, I’m hoping that he is the god I believed in, which is the good
loving god. This hope drives me to be a christian. For me, a loving god gives me hope for the future and a hope to persevere as a good person not as a delusion but as a true wish. What if he is
wrathful and I die? What if it turns out it was Zeus? Oh well, I
wouldn’t want to follow a god I don’t agree with and I can’t change the
fact that he exists. If he says “Congratulations, you are a good person
you may live in heaven”, then I guess I’ll accept. Nothing wrong in
that. If he says “Congratulations you live your life as a good person,
torture this evil person because he disobeyed me” then I’ll say, “I’m
sorry I think I was in the wrong line”.

Science has got a lot closer to finding the answers than religion ever has. Religion decides its answers and then impresses them upon the world…science finds the logical steps to the answers. So we havent found all the answers yet, because we are still working on the logical steps. So when you climb off your high horse in fairyland and actually give us some proofs about your take on reality, then I will give religion the time of day. However, until then, I am putting my faith in science.

I’m not an Atheist, nor do I fully believe in God’s existence. I’ll say I’m a true Agnostic at best. As I do believe that anything is possible, with or without any proof or physical evidence. Being born in 1988, and raised in a different time and era with a conflicting parental belief system on this subject (Mother a Christian, Father an Atheist) it certainly left me in the middle but neither of them forced nor attempted to convert me or my younger brothers into their system. They left it open for us to learn and make our own conclusion upon.

With that said, I do believe we were created by something, some force, some being, whether it was with purpose or on accident, we were created by something. But I have that question on my mind at all times, as do the majority of us that don’t completely believe in one source or idea. And that is, well, I don’t know if it has a term, or a name, but I call it the “Mental Mirror Effect ” or “Mirror Questioning Syndrome”. And this of course, starts with the most obvious asked question “Where did we come from?” well, that’s the beginning question, but then, my mind starts to ask that question over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Similiar to how if you were to put two mirrors together facing eachother, it would give off that endless apperance of something being there forever with no end.

As a child, when I was in Sunday School (this didn’t last long, by the way). I would question the teacher this way. I’d ask “Where did we come from?” and the answer was ‘God”. And of course, I’d continue with this question, “Well, if God made us, then who made God? And whoever made God, well, who created that being in order to make God? And who created that being in which went onto later creating God so God could create us?”. Needless to say, the teacher never had the answer to that. And, as far as I’am concerned. Humanity will never have the answer to that question. Even the “Big Bang” theory can’t answer that. It just “happened”, but, what caused that to “happen”? Very complex ways of thinking stemmed from just a sentenced made of five words.

God made the universe before the laws of the universe were created. Thus the laws of the universe do not apply when referring to the existence or creation of God because the laws did not exist before God created them. Having stated this, one can conclude that God was not created but simply existed in a medium beyond the bounds of our universe.

No one made God. God is spirit. He is immaterial and eternal. No beginning, no end. Time began when He created the universe. Cause and effect are dependent upon time.. He exists outside of time. Our universe clearly had a beginning. The universe cannot create itself that is illogical. No could it have been the result of a mulitverse or universes birthing universes due to infinite regression which is dependent upon time. Most people have beef with God due to a misunderstanding of his character and attributes, our responsibility to a god if one A: he exists and B: he is personal. The problem of evil and free will under the lordship of our sinful and evil nature prevents people from accepting he exists. None of the counterclaims mentioned are actual arguments disproving the positive affirmation. They are simply arguments for why one is not required to believe in God, not evidence disproving Him. I hoped this helped Bucko!!!

It is your second sentence that is the weak link of your argument. I would argue that ‘spirit’ is an invention of man. Angels, demons, gods, devils, poltergeists, chupacabras (sp?)… all inventions of man’s ingenuity. The descriptions ‘immaterial and eternal’ are convenient in that they preclude material and mortal men from further argument. But the bible states that no man can look upon the face of God and live. God shields Moses from his glory as he creates the ten commandment slabs. The sky opens up and a voice is heard, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.” So, suddenly God IS material and he has a voice that men can hear, and he has a ‘glory’ that causes Moses to come down off Mount Sinai glowing and radiant. Job also heard God’s voice.

@ Joshua – There’s nothing wrong the way you think. . .I believe were not created by accident.Try to look at our body,the parts are exactly in the right place..everything has it’s purpose. . .the nails,the eyelashes,the fingers,the hair. .etc….the architect of our body is just awesome and the way our body was designed.About the question where GOD came from – The Christian Bible also teaches us not to think too high.Our minds has a limit of the way we think(According to the Bible).Though we are free to think of anything,the Christian bible teaches us to control our minds because if we can’t control ourselves then we would really commit sin.

Why is it that a majority of the discussions on any particular list or topic becomes an American bashing argument? Is that really all you have? I guess I’ll quote an American movie that seems to ring true on this website, ” Mama says, stupid is as stupid does”. – Forrest Gump.

64.5% of the Listverse audience is from North America, and some people wonder why America gets mentioned more often than other countries. I’m not entirely convinced America does get mentioned more but even if it does, the majority of the audience (and contributors?) are from the U.S and Canada.

Honestly, if people are that upset that their particular nation isn’t getting the love it should there are two great options:

1. Make your own Lists (there’s nothing stopping anyone with an internet connection)

2. Find a different list-based website that caters better to your needs (but let’s be honest, they’ll find something to complain about no matter where they go)

Ideally folks would discuss the actual topics presented rather than bringing up their ignorant disdain for America (or whatever else they want to nitpick at), but as I said, some folks just love to complain regardless.

For me to believe in anything, it must first be seen. Has anyone ever even seen God? Also, there is way too much evidence pointing towards evolution then there is in creationism. And finally, religion itself is the world s most profitable corporation, so what did history’s Popes really worship? Money, power and control.

What I notice is that most of the people who believe in god only believe in him out of fear of the unknown, not because they chose to believe and because without god they think they don’t have a purpose in life. The purpose of life is as simple as just keeping this planet at an equilibrium (not sure why, but it worked), it does not have any higher purpose.

Most people believe simply because they have been brought up in a faith… if your parents weren’t theists then no matter how “awesome” god is in your mind right now wouldn’t matter then would it?

From childhood many people are being literally scared into a religion saying that if you don’t do x you will be punished or whatever; this basically engraves whatever sense or nonsense that is taught onto the child and he/she will infect more people with random crap when they grow up… the problem is children aren’t taught to reason with religion but more FORCED into it…

Al

Can you see confidence? Can you see your own brain? No. IMO for me to believe in something it has to be detectable through valid means… means the phenomenon can be felt through a sense, prolongs without that, and also can be repeated. That’s what science does and obviously what religion is very uncomfortable with…

“We’re teaching our kids about God. If they choose to go to church when they are older, great. If not, so what? If people still believe I never understood why they HAVE to do cetain things or it doesn’t count.”

The problem is that you don’t teach your kids to REASON with the religion you teach them. You know what I hate? The fact that so many theists (not just parents) leave out the negative parts and only promote the positive ones and declare your faith as ‘righteous’ or whatever.

Are you even aware of the fact that most theist children DO NOT have the ability to leave their religion? Either because of a punishment after apostasy, or they’re basically BRAINWASHED into the faith!

Parents teach their children religion at a very young age – why? Because they’re basically taking advantage of the fact that children cannot reason with it themselves which means that there is a highly likelihood that the child will be absorbed into the faith regardless whether it’s pure nonsense or not.

If this be the case…is it considered brainwashing children to teach them to eat healthy foods at a young age? For they cannot reason for themselves what foods are healthy or not. Or is it brainwashing or manipulative to teach children starting at a young age virtually anything that you hold true and valuable? Would it be better to not teach them anything and let them float cluelessly in everything?

I have found that many of my friends/loved ones that have been raised in a belief, regardless of what it is, are more than capable of deciding what to believe for themselves once they approached a level of maturity to care about such things.

I do agree that we should teach children to reason with religion and anything in life. And all parts of said teaching should be included; the good and the bad, the easily understood and the complex, etc.

But to say one is taking advantage or brainwashing their children by teaching them values or beliefs at a young age is a bit exaggerated.
Teaching children, especially parent to child teaching, is a form of giving them a step in what that parent feels is the right direction.

Well, it also teaches moral. I know, religion sucks, but brainwashing is kind of negative. Religion saves people, kills them, starts war but makes peace so, there is no telling if religion is good or not. But buddy, you’re gonna have to live with it.

The whole point of faith is that you cannot prove it through reason, or in other words objectively. If there is a God he exists in the heart, deep deep inside, in the realm of subjectivity. These two things, objectivity and subjectivity, are different. Quantum physicists are now finding that merely observing some experiments change their results. In other words their subjectivity is exerting a force on objectivity. If one is objective they attempt to eliminate their self (the center of their experience) from an analysis, and while this is often very very helpful, too many people nowadays are attempting to constantly and compulsively maintain this state. This is both unhealthy and very mentally taxing.

Back to God. Trying to prove or disprove his existence is contrary to faith, which is something we use all the time on a small scale. If I drop a pencil a thousand times and it hits the floor every time, you cannot prove it will hit the ground the next time. Just because physics has worked in a certain way up until that point does not mean it will continue to. But we take it on faith that the pencil will continue to fall. Faith on a larger scale is belief in the objectively impossible, ie Kierkegaard’s law of absurdity. He sums it up thus (paraphrasing): “If I can comprehend God objectively, I do not believe, but because I cannot do this I must believe.”
This sounds simply illogical, but that is because logic and faith (which comes from the heart) are inherently separate. It is something each person must experience and understand for themselves, much like how a mentally disordered person almost cannot be convinced by others that they have a problem, they must come to that conclusion themselves.

Something else to consider: There is no such thing as a “thing.” Consider this. You cannot define thing or object without using another synonymous word. That is because there is really only one “thing.” What is matter? Not what smaller parts is it composed of, but what -is- it? Science shows that we are all made of the same thing and we are all literally connected. This can be experienced when you experience any of the “love” or positive emotions, rather than negative emotions, which are based in fear. This should be no surprise to any religious person, as every popular religion today teaches that essentially God is love. God is just a word for this Thing we all are.

Sorry, I know I’ve been rambling. I’m posting from my phone at work during downtime.

God is generally held as the being everything must serve. Therefore God would not be required to serve anything else but itself. If ever someone found a reason for God’s existence, then God would be deposed and the reason would become the new God. If it exists, God therefore be something like mercy or love. Mercy can only be given to someone who does not deserve it. It is not reasonable nor can it be reasonable. Again, if someone loves another because of some reason then the love is not directly subject to the person being loved, but the reason.

Therefore, It would be unreasonable to hope for a reason for God’s existence.
It seems to me that in Christian theology God’s existence can only be proved through an imitation of God. The person is required to “walk in God’s shoes” as it were, by following Christ. Crudely put, acquiring knowledge of God is like playing football. We can go to school, read all the books, have all the theories and learn every play but if we never go out on the field and play we would never have any true understanding of the game. In short, if I am reading Christian theology correctly, one can only know God exists by becoming God (in a sense).

Everything that has a begining has an end well,not everything god doesn not have a begining nor an ending because god created us all and we are using the “knowledge” he gave us to prove that there is no god ? it has not been proven i do not believe in evolution because it’s a stupid idea if there are “monkeys” changing into humans why aren’t there “monkeys” changing into humans now i believe everything has a reason if humans can reproduce why evolution ? why s it neccesary ? how did monkeys come into existence? why were we humans existent in the best planet of this solar system ? think about it think about how perfect everything has been made , how could everything just fall into place so perfectly i believe in science but i don’t believe in evolution or some other theories reply to this athiests not just with a facepalm or an its all science prove me my point is wrong

I believe in a belief that includes all possibilities, and to think otherwise would be ignorant. I don’t believe things are right and wrong , for what constitutes right and wrong can be different from any perspective, thus making things a matter of opinion. right, wrong, and truth are all things that will never have an exact definition. for what constitutes “right”? a majority of people thinking a certain way? I choose to believe things in their entirety, for why would we go through the trouble of believing in something that not applicable to everything? that covers all bases? that can’t be contradicted because the very concept of contradiction is covered by it’s premise? like “everything is something”, for example. we keep trying to find this notion; this concept of truth, like there is something that is the ultimate truth proven by everything. truth is not a concept, nor will it ever be. if only we stopped trying to find the truth in reality, we’d find that reality is true. reality is. everything is, it just is! take it for what it is, and stop trying to make things of it.

Some thoughts on Truth.
A school principal announced that classes would end at noon to facilitate a staff meeting. As the principal had authority to call the meeting, his/her words did not only describe a truth, it created it. If a teacher said the same thing without permission that teacher would be lying.

At dinner Sally exclaimed that the pie her sister made was the worst thing she ever ate, and it was. However, if she said it to hurt her sister, and it is accepted that sisters ought not to deliberately hurt each other, then Sally was not true to sisterhood, or calling or purpose and her technical truth might actually be an untrue action.

For many years an award was given to the top student. Then it was given to the best five. Eventually it was given out to all graduating students. The significance of the award changed. Its original meaning was destroyed. What it was and what is are two different things, two different truths.

Question; are we acting like the teachers without authority when we try to change he meanings of marriage, sex and sexual relations. Are there things we are watering down and changing the truth about, or do we indeed have the authority to change them. Are the truths about such things, truths we must study and discover or truths we may change? Are we the principals, or is there one with more authority who creates all truth.

Is there a God? Maybe. My thought is this. The belief in God causes people to try to be better people, and to help, and love one another. Therefore the beleif in God is positive, and has positive effects on the world. If people go to heaven too, well that is an awsome bonus. So say your prayers, and adhere to the golden rule even if you find faith difficult, and you will have a positive effect on yourself, and those around you. You just might get to go to heaven too. It is win win.

everyone is entitled to their own opinion. i, personally do not believe in any one god, and i like how science explains the world, however, i am not closed minded. for, since much of our universe is left unexplained, i think that there MAY or may not be something out there, it could be a god, energy, anything. however, if there is a “God” then i think he/she/it/they are incomprehensable, and none of our theories can hope to describe him/her/it/them. for, if there is a devine being, then it would be of a higher complexity than our imaginations could conjoure up. however, believing that one religion is correct and all others are wrong is closed minded. I am an open minded agnostic person, i let other people think what they think, yet i neither belive nor disbelive in the existance of a deity.

When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit,
you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and
exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. Religion
easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion
has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the
sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible
man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if
you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and
smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live
and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til
the end of time!

But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He
always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise,
somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars,
they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about
a good bullshit story. Holy Shit! Overnight I became a sun-worshipper. Well, not overnight, you can’t
see the sun at night. But first thing the next morning, I became a sun-worshipper.
Several reasons. First of all, I can see the sun, okay? Unlike some other
gods I could mention, I can actually see the sun. I’m big on that. If I
can see something, I don’t know, it kind of helps the credibility along,
you know? So everyday I can see the sun, as it gives me everything I need;
heat, light, food, flowers in the park, reflections on the lake, an occasional
skin cancer, but hey. At least there are no crucifixions, and we’re not
setting people on fire simply because they don’t agree with us.

Sun worship is fairly simple. There’s no mystery, no
miracles, no pageantry, no one asks for money, there are no songs to learn,
and we don’t have a special building where we all gather once a week to
compare clothing. And the best thing about the sun, it never tells me I’m
unworthy. George Carlin on Religion

Since you provided no evidence for your claims, I am going to use the atheist argument that your argument is made up. You have done a great job of demonstrating that you disagree with organized religion, however, you have done nothing to support your claims.

I am interested in knowing exactly why you don’t believe in a supreme being, but lack of evidence is not evidence of lack of existence.

Your last statement is a logical fallacy.
The burden of proof lies on the shoulders of the person who is arguing the existence of something. If God didn’t exist, then there wouldn’t be any reason to call myself an Atheist now would there?

Say I believe in magic flying purple armadillos. Of course, you know that there is no way magic flying purple armadillos exist. And to that, I respond, prove that magic flying purple armadillos exist! You cannot prove that they don’t exist. There is no way. Rather, I have to prove that magic flying purple armadillos exists.

Sadly, no religious institution to this date have any real evidence for the existence of an almighty, big-daddy deity.

Lack of evidence for existence is most definitely very strong evidence for non-existence. This god bullshit has had at least 4,000 yrs and over 32,000 gods to prove itself. It has comprehensively failed, providing less than 1 single evidence in all of that time. It is therefore compellingly and comprehensively unreasonable to believe in any god. It is therefore proven that no gods exist. This is how a court would decide the matter for any claim, it is a fair methodology, the case is proven. There are/were no gods.

I’m 14 and I was brought up in the christian faith. Contrary to belief, I wasn’t brainwashed into it. I was allowed to question it. Even growing up, my parents encouraged me to write down questions I may have had. Nowadays, I still believe in a God. I may not put all my faith into it because there are a range of other possibilities but I can see a reason for why people could believe in it. I mean if you really look at it, it’s sort of giving us an absolute answer to how we came to be. It might not be the right answer but atleast it’s an answer. And furthermore, it’s an answer I can semi agree with. So, I like it. I don’t like to be called brainwashed. I don’t like to be called ignorant. Maybe the people ho are saying all of this should ctually become friends with a couple of GOOD and OPEN MINDED christians because they do exist. Maybe you won’t feel so angry and hateful towards speaking about christians.

when you read this in your head just know that the ability to do so is a freak of nature in the matter of odds against you to do so…. If I’m wrong I just die a black nothingness death, and the time of love with my family ment nothing to anything. I use my scientifically unexplainable instinct to judge for myself.. There are millions of unexplainable things going on, a lot of witch happen everyday.

The “infinite regression fallacy” is wrong. (I really hate these “named” fallacies, because no one ever questions them.) If the “first cause” is something of infinite simplicity (such as 1=1 or timeless hyperspace or the uncertainty principle) which can lead to other things which are more complex, and because of their complexity (or the state of existing within linear time), much be caused by something else. So in this sense, God can’t be said to not be the first cause because there is no first cause, bur rather God must be said to not be the first cause because he is to complex (i.e. intelligent) to be the first cause.

” Universe was not known to have had an origin” Completely wrong, implies a beginning when IN FACT we don’t know still.

Man the pictures you use are sooo horribly depressing & ignorant (opinion). you can see why kids are scared into religion. just imagine all the generations of kids throughout the ages who were smothered & brainwashed into this extreme nonsense. Being told by their primitive parents god exists. Kids in recent times have it alot better, as they can see the modern world & how it works alot easier.

anyone with half a brain will tell you that the arguments against god FAR out weight the arguments for. its not looking good at all for God.

So even if god’s existence is still a possibility. No one in history has addressed the colossal unfair absurdities.

seriously this stuff gets to me, thinking about the people in the dark ages whos lives were corrupted by religion as one example. They had no idea of much about the real world.

the bible was a political move not divine, look up the facts, test your faith by looking up the facts on the the other side of the argument, if you read this and you dont then it is probably because you dont feel your faith is strong enough to withstand any factual evidence that would kill off your belief system

If you believe in a whatever in the sky then what made him/her/it wake up one morning (if him/her/it does sleep)
and decide to make the earth and surrounds. That’s a lot of work for 6 days. Says he/she/it made the heaven and
earth so where did he/she/it live before the making part. In the Aquinas theory about things being the greatest he
kind of shoots himself in the foot with fire being the greatest heat.
P.S. Love the bible it’s a great read!

I believe this list proved that arguments as a whole can influence ideas about religion and the existence of the universe, what we can see here has no evidence on the existence or manifestation of a ” so called deity “. I mean, if you truly research and engage with other people within your social circle you can come to an agreement or conclusion as to why there would need to be a God, and how he designed us particularly or if he did at all create us in the first place.

I believe that if you pressure people (especially children since they can’t come to a balanced or conclusive point based on their age) in believing or accepting your beliefs as non-argumentative or truth based, it will only cause them to live a completely narrow lifestyle and cause them to ” back-up ” their respective religions using nonsensical evidence. I think this was a very informative and interesting list, but I can’t shake of that particular feeling that it would just annoy people because they’re to believing in religion or theism to much to accept any sort of deviance!

God’s eternal so don’t ask where He came from because He didn’t come from anywhere He’s always existed.

All have sinned and? greatly offended the Holy God of the Bible. The just punishment is death then Hell. That’s not God’s will. He loved you so much that He became a man in the person of Jesus Christ and suffered and died on the cross paying for the law guilty sinners like you and I broke in His life’s blood. Now He can legally dismiss your case. You must repent turn from your sin and trust alone in the finished work of Jesus Christ for your eternal salvation.

That’s dumb. If I could understand the purpose(objective, intention, aim) of posting an excerpt from the bible, then that would give clarity (coherence and intelligibility) to the posting and I would have a better understanding of why it was posted.

Now, now, Bill – no name calling is necessary. You’re still struggling a bit with your English, but I know what you are trying to say. You had it right the first time. You wanted to know the original commenter’s purpose. You didn’t need him to clarify, because his statement was already clear for anyone with a basic education.

I always find the amount of forceful imperatives used in the bible alarming…maybe we should be told how to think rather than what to think…if only there was a way of doing that…oh wait, there is, it’s called science!

Before we start, I’m going to say: I’m not anti-atheist. I’m anti-anti-theist.
—
Alternately, we can argue that many children are brainwashed or threatened into anti-theism (which is none less or even more true today.) Even when they are older, these people will assume that “religion is eeeevil” without researching it thoroughly, because that is the way they have been taught as a child or because they will be excommunicated by their peers if they think otherwise. They will think that all religions cause war, polygamy, wife-beating etc. just because their parents and friends say so without actually consulting religious teachers first.

Remember, freedom to decide is something that all humans deserve, even if their parents are anti-theist.

The reason religion sounds like “pure nonsense” today is because of something called “fundamentalism”, which many anti-theists (notice how I say “anti-theists”, because many religions (such as Buddhism) are atheist and many atheists are respectable human beings) does not even want to attempt to know the meaning of. Before the 15th century, few religious teachers taught myths to mean literally what they say and in fact, no significant religious texts back then were meant to be understood literally.

However, after the 15th century people began to think that just because a text says that something is true, it must be literal. True does not equal literal. Just as the word “apple” does not equal an actual apple (or there would be no starvation), a myth using a fruit and a snake to explain the growth of a human being into maturity does not equal that there was ACTUALLY a magic voodoo garden where a naked couple pranced about until a reptile came and fed them a fruit which gave them an eye for fashion. No, the “Adam and Eve” story was not meant to be taken literally.

If you’re wondering, “Why would they put the Adam and Eve story in the Bible when they could’ve just written a literal account,” ask yourself, “would I rather read a simple short story that could make me understand the sophisticated philosophy of human nature in a short time OR would I read a 30 page essay with confusing concepts and big words which I cannot begin to make the dickens of?” And remember, not everyone owned a copy of the dictionary in the 10th century so if there was a word they didn’t understand…too bad.

I advise you to judge religion by the people who actually take religion seriously, not by those who take religion just as a ticket to some magical paradisal place in the clouds.

Here are some of the things non-fundamentalists do NOT believe:
-There is an ugly man with horns in the centre of the earth who is responsible for every bad action
-Some little man defied the laws of physics by flapping his arms to part the Red Sea
-A bearded old man sits in the clouds and can blast whoever he does not freaking like
-That evolution is wrong, and the same ole bearded man pointed his pinky and ZAM! here we are.
-That if you are good person you shall live forever in the stratosphere, and if you are a bad person you shall live forever in the lithosphere

And here’s the important thing: those who are actually religious and not just cowardly conformists respect atheists, as long as those atheists do not force their point of view against others. And vice versa–atheists should respect theists as individuals, as long as that individual does not force the atheist to convert.

Look–if a theist ever comes up to you and says “RAWR IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN OUR RELIGION YOU WILL BURN RAWR”, instead of making a fallacious generalisation and believing that all theists are stupid, ignore them because they don’t know what the heck they are talking about.

As Einstein said; energy can neither be created nor destroyed; every where in the known universe there is energy, I believe this energy is divine or its source is divine. The universe is working under a set of laws, my question is who created these laws. V need to study science n comparative relegion n then decide, its that simple, no need to get emotional on these issues.

Flamehorse, great job with the article. It really makes you think. I’ve wrestled with this issue many times, but I heard an argument like the one you mentioned by Thomas Aquinas that really stuck with me:

Concerning the beginning of the world, there are only 2 CHOICES.
We either must believe in the existence of:

(A) a causeless universe
-OR-
(B) a causeless creator

Since we know that all things that are a part of our natural world (meaning all matter and the physical laws that govern it) must have a cause, we must therefore embrace the fact that something to which this “rule of cause” does not apply must be outside of our natural world. If it is outside of our natural world, then it would not be bound to the physical laws of our natural world. If we believe that the universe is eternal, then we must also say that the universe is outside of our natural world, and if that is so, then there is no natural world at all because the existence of a natural world is based on the universe being a part of the natural world. Therefore, if the universe was removed from the natural world, then it would cease to exist. If the universe does not exist, then I do not exist. Since I exist, the universe could not have created itself.

This list should be called “Arguments for The Existence of God amd their Counter-Arguments” . The arguments against God are reactions to arguments for God rather than “5 Arguments For and Against God” as the title suggests.

That said I cannot think of 5 reasons against the existence of God off the top of my. Disregarding arguments against BELIEF in God as they would be arguments agains religion, the main argument would simply be that there is no evidence to support the belief in God (I do not count silly assumption-based word-games as evidence).

To assert as some do that science does not prove god does not exist is a questionable proposition. There seems to be much linguistic confusion around this. How can science with its instruments see or peep into a being that has no body, no weight, no shape, no mind, – in short, no attributes of an entity, in any form or shape, that human beings can undestand? To use Ockham’s razor to help us along, we may say instead that the whole idea of such a ‘being’ defies common sense. Yet people cling on to such a nonsensical ‘ghost in the machine’, the god in the known universe. However, to imagine a god ‘existing’ in an imaginary universe is possible! Perhaps there lies the solution to the problem that takes into account conflicting views.

I personally am an Atheist, but my only question in regard to this subject and the subject of God is, what created the big bang. For the current theory goes that two giant rocks collided. So were they just floating about for eternity? IF so then is time infinite? If time is infinite then are infinite possibilities thus all will happen. Then that means that there is a heaven and a God.

Until one of the thousands of “gods” claimed to exist over the last 3000 years is proven to exist, there are no “gods”. The burden of proof lies on those who make the claim that there is one, not on those who refute it.

What is claimed without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Religious claims are no more “proof” of a “god” than Harry Potter novels are proof of magic.

Well, those answers are rather interesting, but there is no way of knowing which argument is true. This will always be a mystery, and if he does exist, I am both happily cheering and crying at the same time, if he doesn’t exist, then I will cry and yet have a sense of happiness that there is nobody holding upon my soul. Yes, a mystery beyond life and reality. Well, I guess we’ll just have to keep asking that question.

believing is not proving so when you believe something or someone you’re not looking for proof you are believing without proof if I tell you something happened either you believe me or you don’t believe me but if you know that it happened you don’t need to believe me you know that it happened the same principle applies to this “argument” believing is not knowing it’s taking your word for it.I don’t believe in god but I know he exist and I follow him.I have had one on one Direct contact with him when I died. I was declared legally dead for an hour. I want to heaven first where God judge me I want from heaven to hell when I was in hell it was the most painful places I was dehydrated I saw demons torturing others I never want to go back. God gave me a second chance and I am eternally grateful that he did

5 God exists, provided that it is logically possible for him to exist.

This does not follow. Just because it is logically possible for something to exist does not mean that it does exist.

4 “Belief in God is thus preferable to disbelief in God.”

That may well be the case but proves nothing, I can’t beleive people fall for this nonsense.

3.”Therefore, there exists something that is the cause of the existence of all things, and of goodness, and of every perfection whatever. We call this “God.”

Call it what you like but it doesn’t follow from the previous statement that this something exists. There is undoubtedly something that is the most [fill in your own quality], but that thing does not mean that it has any special powers.

2.”Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.”

So if there is no god that would explain why your thought process is faulty.

1. a. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
b. Nothing finite and contingent can cause itself.
c. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
d. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.

Taking b and d together, the claim is that the first cause has always existed and always will exist. A causal chain of infinite length is equally as plausible as this, if not more so.

The first mover argument is made from an ignorant earth based point of view. The natural state of bodies is motion in a straight line as per Newton’s third law. Everything that you can see everywhere is moving. Nothing is static. Uninformed earth based observation is that things are naturally stationary. This is further confused because friction and air resistance cause things to slow down and eventually stop relative to their surroundings. Objects in the vacuum of space will travel in a straight line unless acted upon by other forces, like gravity.